Pinch Me...

Jesus Court Painting Survives ACLU Attack

A disputed portrait of Jesus Christ will remain at the Slidell city courthouse in Louisiana after a federal judge refused to grant a demand by the American Civil Liberties Union to have the painting removed.

A disputed portrait of Jesus Christ will remain at the Slidell city courthouse in Louisiana after a federal judge refused to grant a demand by the American Civil Liberties Union to have the painting removed.

“The court today recognized that the First Amendment allows public officials, and not the ACLU, to determine what is appropriate for acknowledging our nation’s legal and cultural heritage,” said Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for the Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, in a statement Friday.

“The ACLU’s sole and stated objective in this case was to have the Jesus painting removed. But the Constitution does not prohibit public buildings from memorializing great figures from our history.”

The Jesus portrait, which had been on display in the courthouse for more than a decade, had spurred the ACLU to file a lawsuit claiming that the display violated the separation of church and state.

In response, the city of Slidell mounted additional portraits of 15 of history’s preeminent lawgivers alongside the Jesus painting. The framed portraits added on Aug. 31 included those of Confucius, Hammurabi, Moses, Charlemagne, and Sir William Blackstone. Alongside the 16 framed portraits are a reproduction of the U.S. Constitution and a mounted explanation of the various figures in the paintings.

However the added prints did not appease the ACLU, which refused to drop the case.

“It’s sad that we’ve reached a point where such images have to be defended,” ADF’s Johnson said. “The ruling today is believed to be the first-ever federal court decision to specifically review and uphold as constitutional an image of an adult Jesus on public display.

“While such images and other religious symbols are common in public buildings throughout the U.S., none have been challenged in this manner before,” he added.

Judge Ivan Lemelle on Friday ruled against the ACLU and said the only remaining issue to be discussed is attorneys’ fees.

ADF has many times defended communities in South Louisiana against ACLU lawsuits, including after Hurricane Katrina when the ACLU sued to block a privately funded memorial to storm victims because it included a cross.

Jennifer Riley
Christian Post Reporter

I bet it was a lilly-white blonde-haired blue-eyed Jesus, too.

so now some dude that lived 2000 years ago in Palestine is part of America's culture heritage, a country less that 300 years old, and to date doesn't have any colonies in or around Palestine

Not entirely clear who's taken one on the chin here, is it?

FunkZilla:

......
In response, the city of Slidell mounted additional portraits of 15 of history’s preeminent lawgivers alongside the Jesus painting. The framed portraits added on Aug. 31 included those of Confucius, Hammurabi, Moses, Charlemagne, and Sir William Blackstone. ....

Hahaha- sounds to me like the Jesus creeps in Slidell took one in the a$$. It must suck for these rednecks to have to look up and see Confucious next to their precious blonde Jesus.

I would like to read the judge's opinion.

Not exactly clear how anyone concluded that Jesus ranked amongst the prominent lawgivers, as, regardless of what one thinks of him theologically, he was more noted to pointing out that the old laws do not apply than with creating any new ones.

He did cite the contemporary Jewish position that the law could be summarized as 1) love G_d and 2) love your neighbor as yourself, and perhaps provided an interpretation of the adultery prohibition to specify that looking on a woman with lust is included, but that hardly qualifies him as one of the great legal pioneers of our history. The case for Moses and the 10 Commandments is a lot stronger than is the case for Jesus, IMHO

One question does come to mind: "What would Solomon do," as well of course, as the now-proverbial, "What would Jesus do?"
The need for the ACLU and groups like it, has never been so painfully apparent as during the last six and a half years of dictatorship in the country.

Good post, as always, and thank you.