| Dear Friends,You know how I am always bragging about our top-notch lawyers here at the Becket Fund? Well, today, I just have to brag about our communications staff, too.
Take a look at this video they put together about the battle that the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is waging against a 60-year-old veterans memorial in Montana. It’s very short – not even 3 minutes long – and well worth the watch because it boils this case down to its most human level.
Did you catch what our client, local Knights of Columbus member Ray Leopold, said about the statue in that video? “It’s almost as if the statue has become a citizen of Whitefish, Montana.”
Other local residents say the same thing. In a piece recently run on the CBS affiliate TV station out of Missoula, Montana, KPAX, a resident had this to say:
“I’ve been skiing here since I was 14 years old, so 30 years…. I think the locals love it – it’s part of the mountain. It’s been here for so long. To me, it’s just the fundamentals of someone from somewhere else trying to decide what’s going to happen on our mountain here. It’s not right.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation and other groups like it scour the Internet looking for local monuments to challenge. They are on a mission to completely scrub all signs of faith from the public square – regardless of how the community they’ve swooped into feels about it.
You may recall that in June, a federal judge agreed with the Becket Fund and allowed this Montana statue to remain standing on Big Mountain. As the judge said: “Unquestionably, Big Mountain Jesus is a religious symbol commonly associated with one form of religion. But not every religious symbol runs afoul of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.”
But, just a few weeks ago, FFRF appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. We will continue to defend the local Knights of Columbus and Big Mountain Jesus. We are grateful for your support in this fight for religious liberty.
Sincerely,
Kristina Arriaga
Executive Director
And, just a brief recap of the Big Mountain Jesus case in case you can’t watch the video until later:
The local Knights of Columbus have had a permit from the federal government for this statue since 1954. The Knights built the statue and maintain it as a memorial to the veterans of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division who returned to this part of Montana following World War II. Those soldiers had served in the Italian Alps and saw statues like this one throughout their tour(s) of duty. The veterans said that statues like this helped sustain them during the war.
The Knights’ permit applications for this 25×25-square-foot parcel of land on what has become Whitefish Mountain Resort have been approved without controversy every ten years. Then, in 2010, the Freedom From Religion Foundation challenged the permit from their perch in Madison, Wisconsin, and under pressure from FFRF, the U.S. Forest Service rejected the Knights’ re-application.
The public outcry in support of the statue was tremendous! The Forest Service received 95,000 public comments in less than two months. As a result, the Forest Service reversed course and re-issued the permit, stating that the statue “is important to the community for its historical heritage.”
So, FFRF sued and the Becket Fund took up the cause on behalf of these local Knights.
Today, Friday, September 20th, is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. This statue was erected to commemorate the service of Montana’s veterans. And, right now we are fighting for our religious liberty – one of the very rights that some of those World War II veterans lost their lives to defend.
Take a moment to watch this short video and forward it to a friend to commemorate the men and women of the Armed Forces that don’t make it home when they are defending our freedom |
JAMES KENNEY, Age 78