Posted on 07/01/2007 12:28:33 PM PDT by BBell
Flanked by Slidell's mayor and local clergy, City Court Judge Jim Lamz said Saturday he has decided not to remove a portrait of Jesus from the Slidell court's lobby, potentially setting the stage for a legal battle with the American Civil Liberties Union.
With the portrait hanging above him, Lamz told a news conference he disagrees with the ACLU's assertion that displaying the portrait violates the First Amendment's guarantee of separation of church and state.
Lamz said the court will await further action from the ACLU, which had set a Monday deadline for action on the issue after an initial letter sent to Slidell Court Clerk Susan Ordoyne on June 20.
The portrait has been identified by local clergy as "Christ the Savior," a 16th century Russian Orthodox icon. It depicts Jesus holding a book open to biblical passages, written in Russian, that deal with judgment.
The only portrait in the courthouse's main foyer besides one of founding judge Gus Fritchie, for whom the courthouse is named, the image of Jesus hangs above the court's billing window. Below the portrait are gold letters reading: "To know peace, obey these laws."
The judge said he is resigned to a lawsuit over the portrait.
"Due to the display's historical place in the courthouse, I explored options to obtain a definitive ruling on the constitutionality of the display without an adversarial court battle," he said. "I could find none."
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1857083/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1854193/posts
Looks like there is a Legal fight ahead. I'm glad we are taking a stand.
“Lamz said he consulted with a constitutional scholar at the University of Michigan, who he said has argued similar cases, before concluding that the portrait’s constitutionality remains an open legal question.”
We need to sue the crap out of the ACLU for something ... like presenting a frivolous law suit. If they don't liek Christ - FINE! Don't look at His picture.
The ACLU (Anti-Christ Lawyers' Union) is dead wrong on this. Amendment I restricts Congress ONLY. You would think that a bunch of lawyers would at least be literate.
Make the ACLU prove it is a picture of Jesus, and not Uncle Ike from Shreveport.
I hear the ACLU is still going to let the Muslim footbaths at the University of Michigan/Dearborn go ahead. They will be paid for by public funds.
Now, somebody explain how the picture of Christ hanging in a court cannot be constitutional but prayer footbaths can be?
Fact is, the ACLU hates Christians and Jews; they will roll over and play dead when it comes to Muslims.
“..a legal battle with the American Civil Liberties Union.”
Why do they allow this scummy organization to operate in America? First Amendment right? Then we should also allow Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to open their offices here.
(Oops, maybe they already have under the guise of some democrat-party related organization.)
This sounds like an excellent case to expand our constitutional freedom of religion. Our laws are based on Common Law, which in turn was based on natural law, which in turn was based on the Greek philosophers, Roman law-givers, and the Bible.
It is a denial of reality to pretend otherwise, or to cut us off from our honored historical roots.
Defund Planned Parenthood and the ACLU!
HERE! HERE!
Since there may or may not have been a person named Jesus Christ and, if He did exist, He may or may not have been God and even if He was God, nobody knows what He really looked like, how can anyone object to a portrait of Him, which, no doubt, doesn’t even look like Him, probably even remotely?
Pedophiles and mass murderers need to be protected but Jesus Christ needs to be prosecuted.
The ACLU is only doing it’s Communistic job, you know.
America’s Republic was said to only be effective for and with a Christian populace. Kill Christianity, and you kill the Republic. It is high time some judicial authority in this country sees it that way!
Get rid of the ACLU before it gets rid of us!
Hear, Hear, maybe a Paul Revere rides again.....
The earliest depictions of Christ, I believe, were on catacomb walls and showed him with chin-length hair. This isn’t a picture of Christ. Just tell them it’s Che Guevarra. That should do the trick.
This is one area I don’t trust Justice Kennedy to be on our side. We still need one more real conservative justice before we can restore the meaning of the first admendment. We usuaslly lost both O’Connor and Kennedy on these types of decisions.
The First Amendment guarantees no such thing.
BUMP
I doubt if most of the depictions of Christ are even close to accurate.
BTW I like your tag line. Fitting for liberals.
I think all this crap by the ACLU is silly, but I do have one question for people on this thread.
Would you object if there was a picture in the same location of Mohammed holding a Koran?
The ACLU should be the NEXT target for the new American Majority.
THIS is a PERFECT case.
The Icon must be Christ Pantocrator - Christ the Master of the World (literally, Almighty). Similar icons were found throughout the Orthodox Mediterranean from Sicily to Constantinople. I think it is in Hagia Sophia also.
I agree. Why are taxpayers dollars funding these obviously leftwing political fronts?
It does kind of look like a guy I saw in the grocery store the other day. But he was buying whiskey. They sell whiskey in the grocery stores down here. I guess we’re not such Holy Rollers.
It’s “hear, hear”. “Here, here” is meaningless.
Sorry, pet peeve.
I’m all for fighting the ACLU, but I wish it were something other than modern idolatry we were fighting for. Is this really what we should expend our moral capital on?
What you making fun of creationists?
“I’m all for fighting the ACLU, but I wish it were something other than modern idolatry we were fighting for. Is this really what we should expend our moral capital on?”
Yes.
If you don’t have Christ (God) you might as well forget any kind of a civilized society. Christianity is the ONLY civilized belief when properly adhered to. That’s the problem with our moral climate - they’re removing God and our culture is in the sewer.
That is hysterical.
Too funny.
But thst picture isn’t Christ. It’s an idol that God said not to make. How are we defending Christ when we defend disobedience?
Most of the ACLU mwmbers are Jews, and a few that profess to be Christians.
Neat picture.
"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people..." --Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. http://tinyurl.com/oozooSo by quoting Jefferson to help justify their scandalous interpretation of the establishment clause, 10th A.-ignoring justices actually quoted probably the worst person that they could have quoted to do their dirty work."In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378 http://tinyurl.com/jmpm3
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. http://tinyurl.com/nkdu7
1st Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And not only did the Court misrepresent Jefferson with respect to their special-interest interpretation of the establishment clause, the Court likewise misrepresented the intentions of John Bingham, the main author of Sec. 1 of the 14th A., with respect to its bogus interpretation of the religious aspects of that amendment.
More specifically, regardless that the Supreme Court wrongly claims that the 14th A. applied the Bill of Rights in its entirety to the states, particularly the establishment clause, Bingham had clarified in general that the 14th A. was not meant to take away any state's rights. Again, see for yourself.
"The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights (emphasis added) that belong to the States." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe http://tinyurl.com/2rfc5dThe bottom line is that people need to wise up to widespread judicial corruption, particularly where the Court's unlawful limiting of our religious freedoms is concerned. We all know that the issue with the Judge Jesus portrait in the Slidell City Courthouse is but one of many examples of judges unlawfully legislating the bogus constitutional principle of absolute c&s separation from the bench. The people need to petition judges and justices who are not upholding their oaths to defend the Constitution to resign from the bench."No right (emphasis added) reserved by the Constitution to the States should be impaired..." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe http://tinyurl.com/2qglzyu
"Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State? God forbid. I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existance." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe http://tinyurl.com/y3ne4n
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