Judge OKs Everett's Ten Commandments

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Judge OKs Everett's Ten Commandments
Lawsuit challenging monolith is rejected

By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Everett can continue to display the Ten Commandments outside its police station, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in rejecting a constitutional challenge to the monument.

The 6-foot granite monolith that has been in place for 45 years "poses no threat to the religious freedoms of the citizens of Everett," Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik wrote in an order in a lawsuit seeking its removal.

Everett resident Jesse Card, a self-described agnostic, filed the suit in 2003 with the help of pro bono attorneys from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Card told the Seattle Post--Intelligencer at the time that "by placing it on public property, I think it gives the impression of supporting those particular beliefs. I don't believe it's the government's business to tell people what they should or shouldn't believe."

Seattle attorney Marc Slonim, also a member of Card's legal team, said Tuesday that his client is on a cross-country bicycle trip and could not be reached for comment. Slonim said it has not been decided whether to appeal the decision.

Lasnik's legal reasoning closely parallels a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Texas case, where the justices ruled that a virtually identical Ten Commandments monolith passed constitutional muster.

Just as in the Everett case, the monument at issue before the Supreme Court was donated for display at a government building in Texas by the Fraternal Order of Eagles and with the assistance of legendary movie producer Cecil B. DeMille, who had made the blockbuster film "The Ten Commandments." It was one of more than 100 such granite monuments donated around the country in the 1950s and 1960s.

Closely following the logic of the Supreme Court, Lasnik noted that "not all religious displays violate the Constitution" and that the First Amendment clause prohibiting Congress from making a law respecting an establishment of religion "does not allow, much less require, hostility toward religion or its symbols."

The Seattle judge noted, "There is no indication that the city either shared the donor's religious ideals or accepted the gift with an intent to proselytize." And Lasnik said the monument met "many valid secular" goals such as reducing juvenile delinquency and obtaining a free work of art.

Lasnik quoted one justice who said that to remove the Texas monument, which, like the Everett Ten Commandments, had been displayed without controversy for decades, would "lead the law to exhibit a hostility toward religion that has no place in our establishment clause traditions."

Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson said Tuesday that "Judge Lasnik's ruling confirms the important role this monument has in Everett's history."

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