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ACLU rejects Duluth's Ten Commandments settlement
Associated Press
April 15, 2004TEN0415
DULUTH -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota rejected changes Wednesday that the Duluth City Council made to a settlement meant to remove a Ten Commandments monument outside City Hall.
The ACLU-MN, which had sued, and City Attorney Bryan Brown had negotiated a settlement that would have required the city to sell the monument to a nongovernment entity and to pay $10,000 in damages if it ever erected a similar Ten Commandments monument or plaque.
At a meeting Monday that was packed with people who support fighting the lawsuit, the council deleted that language from the settlement and added language that would allow the monument to be taken down, then immediately reinstalled. Most council members said the settlement had gone too far.
Those changes were unacceptable to ACLU-MN and mean that the suit is likely headed for trial, said Chuck Samuelson, the group's executive director.
A court conference is set for April 27 to schedule the next proceedings in the suit.
The 7-foot-tall monument has been sitting on the City Hall lawn since 1957. It was one of a number of such monuments given to cities by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
About six weeks ago, the ACLU-MN and 10 Duluth residents sued in federal court demanding that the monument be removed, saying it violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
The City Council voted 5-4 last month to settle rather than face a court battle.
Similar battles are underway in other states. The American Center for Law and Justice, representing the Eagles, asked a federal appeals court in Chicago on Monday to overturn a decision by a federal court ordering the removal of a Ten Commandments monument in La Crosse, Wis., saying that the monument stands on private property.
In a similar Nebraska case, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will review a three-judge panel's ruling against a monument in Plattsmouth. In that ruling, one judge suggested that if the monument were used in a secular way, it could stay.