The county in far eastern Oklahoma approved the original request, made by former Poteau mayor Don
Barnes, in April 2009. The plan was scrapped a couple months later when a
federal appeals court ruled that a similar monument, at Haskell
County’s courthouse in nearby Stigler, amounted to a government
endorsement of religion. Proponents of the Stigler monument, and of
religious-themed government lawn ornaments in general, were not pleased.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sure does make some people mad.
Like,
they love that monument. You might even say they worship it. And why
not raise up a standing image of stone? If there’s some sort of biblical
set of rules prohibiting such a thing, we haven’t heard of it.
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2012.