Lawsuit dropped after Ten Commandments monument taken down in Illinois
Following the removal of a large Ten Commandments monument from the lawn of the Jefferson County (Ill.) Courthouse, a coalition of multidenominational plaintiffs has withdrawn a lawsuit challenging the display.
Represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU of Illinois and the ACLU, a multifaith group of residents in Jefferson County, Ill., filed suit on June 9 in state court, challenging Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Bullard’s placement of the nearly 7-foot-tall bible monolith at the county courthouse in Mount Vernon. The lead plaintiff was Pastor Lynn Neal. Other plaintiffs included two lifelong Catholic residents, a Presbyterian deacon, an agnostic, a humanist Unitarian and an atheist taxpayer.
The lawsuit noted that the Ten Commandments monument on government property violated Article X, section 3, of the Illinois Constitution, barring government funds, property, resources or time “for any sectarian purpose.”
During a late June meeting immediately after the lawsuit was filed, the members of the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners who had initially approved the erection of the Ten Commandments monument on courthouse property voted to remove it. The monument was recently relocated to a more appropriate location, the West Salem Trinity Church in Mount Vernon. In the July 29 joint motion to dismiss, the county affirmed that “the monument will not return to county property.”
“We’re happy that the county eventually conformed with Illinois’ church-state guarantees,” says Hirsh M. Joshi, Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who first asked the county to remove the unconstitutional display 11 months ago. “It was an honor to help my fellow Illinoisians keep their local government secular.”
“We’re delighted that after we sued, the county acted with alacrity to remove these biblical edicts from the seat of county government,” adds FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This action shows that Jefferson County understands it has no right to tell residents which gods to worship, how many gods to worship or whether to worship any gods at all.”
Kevin Fee, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois, noted the role that local residents played in the victory: “Our clients showed great courage in coming together and challenging this illegal action by their local elected officials. It is easy to be silent and not speak up. But these brave residents stood up for constitutional values and demanded change.”
Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, applauded the county’s decision: “This is a victory for religious freedom. Although county officials had no business prominently displaying scripture at the seat of local government, we’re glad that they’ve now fixed their constitutional error.”
