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HomeCommentaryBRIEF: Sandpoint City Council to discuss removing 10 Commandments monument from park

BRIEF: Sandpoint City Council to discuss removing 10 Commandments monument from park

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Courtesy State of Idaho
Courtesy State of Idaho

A Farmin Park monument displaying the Ten Commandments in Sandpoint, Idaho might be moved to a new location after complaints from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. 

Last year the foundation wrote the Sandpoint mayor asking that the monument be moved since it is on public property. The Wisconsin-based group claims they wrote the mayor on behalf of Sandpoint residents upset about the monument.

The monument has been at its current location for more than 30 years and was installed as a gift from the local Fraternal Order of the Eagles chapter.

The city is considering moving the display to avoid potential lawsuits, though hundreds of residents protested this week and signed a petition demanding the monument stay where it is.

The Sandpoint City Council will discuss the issue at its Wednesday meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m. No action will be taken.

 

Tracy Simmons
Tracy Simmons
Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of FāVS.News, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.

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Diane Uecker
Diane Uecker
10 years ago

This must stop, we cannot continue to allow these people to push us around and decide what we can or cannot display in our parks, communities or anywhere else. We have freedom of speech in this Country and that means we are free to express ourselves in whatever way we wish and if you don’t like what you see, you have the freedom not to look at it. I don’t like what some people write in papers or put on their walls or signs but I would never try to stop them from expressing themselves, I simply choose to not look at it, if it bothers me. I don’t like the words to a lot of rap music but I simply turn it off, I don’t try to stop it from being expressed, that’s called freedom.

Aidan Millheim
9 years ago
Reply to  Diane Uecker

Speaking as one of “Those people”…
The issue here is not one of Freedom of speech or religion.
The issue here is about the Separation of Church and State. Removing or transplanting the monument will NOT infringe on any right to practice religion or express opinions. Everyone will still be free to express themselves in a public place or practice their religion. Everyone will still be free to put up any monument of their choice on their private property.

The Separation of Church and State was designed to protect both the state and the church. This is the reason religious institutions are tax exempt.
Churches are guaranteed the freedom to operate without interference from the state because the state has no business dictating ANY aspect of religion.
However, the flip side of this is that the Church should have ZERO political presence. If the church can operate free from the government, the government SHOULD operate free from religion.

The current location of the monument is a tacit endorsement of Judeo-christian religion by the City of Sandpoint; this remains true no matter how long the monument has been in place.
Removing it harms no one, and does not infringe on any rights.
For the most part, the reaction against the movement of the monument has only served to underscore the fanaticism of those speaking.

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