I love this.

It's in the Constitution in black and white, Supreme Court cases have been fought, and lost, by the religious right. Did they somehow think that their city was immune from the laws of the country? Did they think that some divine intervention would protect them?

You're 100% correct, Major Nikon. It's a damned expensive lesson for Bloomfield, NM. If I lived there the people who brought this lawsuit forward would be looking for other employment.

It's just a reminder that elections have consequences and when you knowingly vote for an asshole, you shouldn't be surprised when their assholery winds up hitting you in the pocketbook.

The problem is I suspect the people who voted for them aren't smart enough to figure those things out and are proud their elected officials overtly wipe their ass with the Constitution.

It is difficult to know who the robbers or bad guys are anymore?

and kept fighting a losing battle, these cases are a slam dunk for the ACLU.

The cost has to be high to stop these religious nuts.

The bad guys are the ones who violated the the law in the first place.

The good guys are the ones who, to begin with, asked that the violation be remedied,

The bad guys said no.

The good guys sued.

The bad guys fought the suit tooth and nail, dragging it out for years, thereby forcing the good guys to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses.

The good guys are going to be compensated for those expenses, and rightly so.

This cost is entirely the fault of the unAmerican jackasses of the city government (and their supporters) who were determined to violate the law. Even though it is clearly illegal, they thought they'd figured out a loophole that would let them get away with using a public facility to promote their religion. They were wrong.

By the way, the price tag for this little adventure isn't only the $700,000. That's only what they must pay the ACLU. It doesn't include the city's legal expenses.

and then erected despite protest and opposition, and went through multiple levels of litigation all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case in 2017 in the city's bid to overturn the rulings against them. Here are a couple of brief articles about what happened.

https://www.aclu.org/news/10th-circuit-ruling-against-bloomfield-ten-commandment-monument-stands

https://www.aclu-nm.org/en/news/aclu-sues-bloomfield-display-10-commandments



As far as who the "bad guys" are, my money is on the Bloomfield city council and also the SCLC-designated hate group American Defense Fund (founded by Focus on the Family's James Dobson and others), who were shit-stirring in the early stages of this travesty.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_Defending_Freedom

As recently as 2009, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals—which governs New Mexico—ordered Haskell County, Oklahoma to remove a similar Ten Commandments monument from the county courthouse grounds, saying that a “reasonable observer” would conclude that the monument was an endorsement of religion. The county’s defense of the monument cost local taxpayers $200,000 in legal fees.

https://www.aclu-nm.org/en/news/aclu-sues-bloomfield-display-10-commandments

Cost a lot of money...

The cost for a full time lawyer, plus benefits probably runs close to $250k a year(or more). That doesn’t include court costs and staff.

That's gotta burn their ass.

Establishment Clause jurisprudence is settled, accepted, and beyond dispute going back decades.

Falls flat on its backside and the city gets to pay the whole thing out of the treasury. The taxpayers voted these clowns into office and they are responsible.

I hope the Go Fund Me draws in $700,000 that would otherwise have been donated to right-wing candidates. Come on, all you religious conservatives, standing up for the Lord is much more important!

however as you stated, we disagree.

and send a bill to each of them.

requiring students to display signs saying that, also state office buildings.
https://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/oklahoma-passes-bill-force-schools-display-god-trust

Sending money to the ACLU-OK now.

and every session they do it again. Then they need a special session at $$$ day to pass a budget for which there will be no money to pay teachers or for the signs. This year they again added a $1 tax to cigarettes which last year was also struck down for being unconstitutional. A high school civics class (almost anywhere but OK since we don't have them) could govern better than our idiots.

"In God We Trust" has been the official US motto since it was passed in 1957 when the red scare demagogues convinced congress the godless communists were going to take over and the only thing standing in their way was the holy poltergeist. It's already been challenged a few times throughout the years, always unsuccessfully as the SCOTUS has ruled that through repetition, invoking the almighty doesn't constitute state sponsorship of religion even though that's exactly the intent of those who do it. Perhaps the ACLU will revive this issue at some point, but given the current narrow minded majority in the court, the effort would almost certainly be fruitless.

Ironically the motto replaced "E Pluribus Unum" which pretty much means the exact opposite.

I'd like to think that the citizens of Bloomfield would have cashiered the lot of them for fucking up that badly and unnecessarily.