Free Republic

.S. District Judge Sim Lake ruled today that a Bible displayed in a monument outside the Harris County Civil Courts Building must be removed within 10 days and that the county must pay $41,000 in court costs and attorney fees. Real estate broker and attorney Kay Staley sued the county in federal court to have the monument removed, contending the display violates the First Amendment ban on an establishment of religion. The King James Bible rests under glass inside a 4-foot stone monument on the west side of the Civil Courthouse, 301 Fannin. The monument was constructed with private funds...

Print Article         Close Window     Democrats in Deep Prayer By Published 8/3/2004 12:08:00 AM TAMPA -- If there's anything dopier than the idea of a Unitarian missionary, it's the idea of an atheist delivering an invocation. But that's what happened before the July 29 meeting of the Tampa City Council. The results resembled outtakes from a Marx Brothers movie. Nobody looked very good, least of all rookie Democratic councilman John Dingfelder, whose idea the whole thing was. Before council got down to the gray business of Tampa government, three council members had walked out, the atheist invoker had...