Court rules that ‘Big Mountain Jesus’ statue in Montana can remain
Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president had stated. “I think it will be very easy to show that this special permit is a sham.”
“The judge said the statue has no religious purpose, but the Knights of Columbus said they put it up to erect a shrine. He turns the First Amendment on its head to claim a Jesus statue is not religious.”
“I couldn’t be more disappointed in an Obama appointee,” Gaylor said. “He might as well be a Bush appointee.”
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the earlier decision in a 2-1 split:
Our determination is based on the following: (1) there is nothing in the statue’s display or setting to suggest government endorsement; the twelve-foot tall statue is on a mountain, far from any government seat or building, near a commercial ski resort, and accessible only to individuals who pay to use the ski lift; (2) the statue’s plaque communicates that it is privately owned and maintained — “it did not sprout from the minds of [government] officials and was not funded from [the government’s] coffers”… (3) besides the statue’s likeness, there is nothing in the display or setting to suggest a religious message. The mountain’s role as a summer and winter tourist destination used for skiing, hiking, biking, berry-picking, and site-seeing suggests a secular context; the location “does not readily lend itself to meditation or any other religious activity,” and the setting “suggests little or nothing of the sacred”… (4) the flippant interactions of locals and tourists with the statue suggest secular perceptions and uses: decorating it in mardi gras beads, adorning it in ski gear, taking pictures with it, high-fiving it as they ski by, and posing in Facebook pictures; (5) local residents commonly perceived the statue as a meeting place, local landmark, and important aspect of the mountain’s history as a ski area and tourist destination; and, (6) there is an absence of complaints throughout its sixty-year history…