Court OKs Wis. Ten Commandments Monument

MADISON, Wis. -- The city of La Crosse's decision to sell a Ten Commandments monument and the land around it to a private service group was constitutional and not made to advance religion, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 that the city's sale of the statue and a surrounding 22-by-20-foot plot of land in a public park to the Fraternal Order of Eagles was proper.

The city sold the parcel to the Eagles after the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and two La Crosse residents sued in 2002 seeking the monument's removal, arguing the display violated the separation of church and state.

A federal judge in Madison ruled the sale was a sham and ordered the monument's removal.

But the appeals court ruled that sale to the Eagles made sense. The Grove City, Ohio-based international nonprofit service organization originally donated the monument to the city in 1965, and it sits across the street from the group's La Crosse office.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-ten-commandments,0,7125554.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

shd find a use for that trinitrotoluene he has laying around...

to blow up someone's private property? In an area near a government building? So what are you the next McVeigh. :eyes:

There will be one of these BEAUTIES in every city ---with the same stuff Tattooed on every Judical Robe in Amerika.

i DO have some jelly!

now for buying parcels of this city park

I can't see how the city could reject a bid for any group to come in a buy parcels for their own little statue garden

FFRF should now apply to buy their own little square of the park and post a plaque with the same message they post in the capitol rotunda to counteract the nativity display:

"There are no gods,
no devils, no angels,
no heaven or hell.
There is only
our natural world.

"Religion is but
myth and superstition
that hardens hearts
and enslaves minds."

The Catholic list is different from the Protestant list. I'd love to see someone start a fight as to which is the correct list.

And leave this proselytizing to a church.

I'd rather read the Ten Fucking Commandmants.

er, no offense. Never could stand those guys, nor the belief system that made them rockstars.

Fraternal Order of Eagles. Personally, I prefer Rolling Stones to Stone Tablets (although the latter might be a good name for a rock group).

It's all in the last paragraph quoted.

It makes sense, and it's a good decision. I applaud the Seventh Circuit (which is a really smart bunch of judges, maybe the smartest in the system) for this decision.

It's destructive to try to apply the Establishment Clause to a situation as precise as this one, and it's unfair.

You have to take the whole situation into consideration - the law is not something that's applied without consideration of all these factors, in its most ideal sense - and this seems to me to be fair and just and right.