The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the Colorado city of Grand Junction, arguing granite Ten Commandments tablets outside City Hall are a religious endorsement.
In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, the ACLU says the stone tablets are an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, which protects religious freedom and prohibits government from establishing and advocating religion.
Jay Baker, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of five Grand Junction residents who are ACLU members, said the monument sends the message that people who adhere to its principles "are the inside, favoured group" in the city and people with other beliefs are outsiders.
"We want the government to stop endorsing religion," said Sue Armstrong, executive director of the Colorado branch of the ACLU. "The [monument] is religious in nature and it crosses that boundary separating church and state."
The monument -- two tablets four feet tall by two feet wide -- has polarized this quiet city of 41,000 on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains 40 kilometres east of the Utah border.
Donated to the city by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1959, it sat quietly in front of the old City Hall for more than four decades. But when officials announced plans to build a new City Hall, and the Ten Commandments moved to its new home -- in a more prominent spot, critics say -- in front of it last July, the seeds of discontent were sown.
The controversy even cost Gene Kinsey his job as Grand Junction's Mayor.
Several residents complained almost immediately. They formed a committee and warned the city a lawsuit would be filed if the monument was not removed. Several public meetings followed during which most people supported keeping the landmark where it is.
The city even erected a disclaimer stating, "This is not intended to be an endorsement of a particular religion," and proposed building a plaza around the tablets that would include other cultural and historical monuments.
The ACLU was unimpressed.
"The disclaimer is basically indicating ... the document is not religious in nature," Ms. Armstrong said. "I think to indicate or suggest the Ten Commandments is not a religious document is an abomination to the roots out of which it grew."
Worried about the impending lawsuit, Mr. Kinsey was one of two councillors on the seven-person council who voted against keeping the tablets during a contentious meeting at the end of March.
He concedes his vote went against public sentiment, but said he did not want to burden the city with a lawsuit that could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
With a municipal election only weeks away, it proved a costly decision. The Christian Coalition of Colorado sent a letter to thousands of voters in Grand Junction criticizing Mr. Kinsey for running "from his principles and from the will of the people."
The letter struck a chord, and he lost his re-election bid for council.
"It was a four-page letter. They casually mentioned my name 25 times, denouncing me as kind of a Godless liberal," Mr. Kinsey says with a half-hearted laugh. "So now I am a lame-duck, soon-to-be-gone Mayor."
His term ends on May 7. Based on promises made during the campaign, Mr. Kinsey expects the new council to fight the ACLU's lawsuit and keep the Ten Commandments.