Posted on 07/02/2004 5:21:53 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
Every workday for the past six months, Alan Blackburn of Pequot Lakes has parked a quarter-mile down the road from the state Department of Revenue office in Brainerd, Minn., and walked the rest of the way to his job there.
Blackburn, 48, doesn't necessarily need the exercise. But, according to a lawsuit filed against his employer this week in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, his car has been barred from the state parking lot as long as it carries the religious and political messages he's posted on it.
The suit, brought by a Virginia-based nonprofit legal center founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, says Blackburn has been unconstitutionally denied his rights to freedom of speech, free exercise of religion and equal protection under the law. The signs on his car say:
• God is a loving and caring God.
• God defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. He also says sex is to be enjoyed between a husband and a wife only.
• God gave us the 10 Commandments. "In God We Trust" is our national motto. Why can't the 10 Commandments be displayed on government property?
• Share your beliefs with others. Then stand back and let them decide what to do. God gave us freedom of choice.
Blackburn, a 10-year employee of the Revenue Department, declined Thursday to discuss his reasons for posting the signs or suing his employers. Geoffrey Surtees, one of his lawyers, described Blackburn as a Christian who "just recently decided he wanted to start expressing himself in this manner."
According to the suit, Blackburn also has been prohibited from driving his message-festooned car on state business and from displaying religious items in his office cubicle. Meanwhile, the suit says, other state employees are allowed to have bumper stickers and other signs on their cars in the parking lot and in their office cubicles.
Revenue officials said Thursday that they had not seen the suit and declined to comment on it.
Blackburn's case is not the first in Minnesota taken up by the American Center for Law and Justice of Virginia Beach, Va., which Robertson founded in 1990 with a mission to "undo the damage done by almost a century of liberal thinking and activism." The center's Web site -- www.aclj.org -- also says it is "dedicated to defending and advancing religious liberty, the sanctity of human life and the two-parent, marriage-based family."
In 2002, the center won $78,000 in damages for two Minnesota prison employees who were reprimanded for reading Bibles during mandatory staff training on gays and lesbians. Surtees said the center also won a settlement for a state Department of Health worker who was reprimanded for criticizing the department's participation in a Gay Pride event.
But the center also lost cases on behalf of a Faribault High School biology teacher who was reassigned after questioning curriculum on human evolution and on behalf of a Minneapolis Southwest High School teacher who protested the use of a school's women's restroom by a male fellow teacher who dressed as a woman.
Surtees said many cases come to the center from listeners to its chief counsel's talk radio show -- Jay Sekulow Live! -- which is broadcast on more than 500 stations nationwide.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
But the Vulva with the bumper stickers with lefty messages is allowed.
As long as its deemed to be secular, yes. The bureaucrats would also tolerate stickers praising the virtues of the Religion Of Peace. TM
One of these days, we will get a federal law that says the government cannot prohibit the free exercise of our Religion. Might even get it in the Constition, if we're lucky.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
*
"Might even get it in the Constition, if we're lucky."
LoL!
US lawmakers request UN observers for November 2 presidential election
Article I Bill of Rights
Section 16
The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience shall never be infringed;
Not in America, right?
And so the persecution continues....
Wow, I work in a government facility and you should see all the "Choose Life" plates, American flags, Bush-Cheney bumper-stickers. It's good to be in Mississippi.
This should be an open and shut case...
As long as the car is his personal property, and it's not being used as part of his official job, then there should be no reason to ban the car from the lot.
On the other hand, if they lose the case, I'd love to see business owners ban cars with "Kerry for President" bumper stickers from their parking lots!
Mark
This is great news! All thos dollar bills with "in God we Trust" will no longer be allowed to go to the IRS. This is the best day of my life....
Don't hold your breath... This Supreme Court has managed to affirm your G-d given, constitutional right to access porn on Al Gore's Internet, but it's against the law to advertise for or against a political cantidate 30 days before an election...
Funny... What part of "Congress shall make no law" don't they get?
Mark
Can i get into a state park if i have a religious bumper sticker on my car?
Give me a break...
Sounds like viewpoint discrimination if other employees are permitted to have bumper stickers or signs in their cubicles.
It was the not so nice Masonic Civil Libertarian types who are atheistic/naturalist who saw to this one.
Sounds like an open and shut case to me.
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