Friday, June 28, 2013

MONTANA: Federal Judge Rules that Statue of Jesus can stay on Federal Land

They don't care if it rains or freezes, they can keep their ski-mountain Jesus. 
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a 6-decade-old, 6-foot-tall Jesus statue could stay on a small patch of federal land in the Flathead National Forest in Montana after an atheist and agnostic group argued that the statue violated the 1st Amendment separation of church and state. 
The Jesus statue sits on a 25-by-25-foot parcel of federal land along a ski run in the Whitefish Mountain Resort. In 1953, the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic group, won permission from the U.S. Forest Service to erect the statue.
In 2011, the Freedom From Religion Foundation -- a Madison, Wisc.-based group of atheists, agnostics and skeptics -- objected to having a religious statue on federal land. That prompted the Forest Service to decide the statue should go, only to quickly reverse course after falling under criticism. Freedom From Religion then sued the government. 
U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen, who was appointed to his bench by President Obama in 2011, granted the Knights of Columbus permission for a 10-year permit to stay on the site. Christensen ruled that the ski Jesus has been a little too goofy to be sacred, as the suers had claimed.
Read the rest of the story HERE.

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