Lawsuit Filed Against City Of Lake Elsinore Over Memorial Depicting Religious Symbols

The American Humanist Association (AHA) has filed a lawsuit in federal court to prevent the City of Lake Elsinore from constructing a veterans memorial depicting a soldier kneeling before a Christian cross and Star of David.  

The lawsuit filed May 31 alleges it’s against the law to spend public money on a project that does not respect separation of church and state.  

“The city has clearly violated the First Amendment by unnecessarily choosing a divisively religious means of honoring our veterans,” said William Burgess, an attorney with the Appignani Humanist Legal Center. “In addition, the California constitution prohibits any governmental funding whatsoever for religious purposes, including religious monuments.”

In November 2012, the Lake Elsinore City Council voted 5-0 to approve the veterans memorial that depicts religious symbols. (See attached artist’s rendering of the memorial.)

The approximately $46,000 granite memorial to be constructed by Sun City Granite is scheduled to be permanently installed at the entrance of The Diamond Stadium.

The AHA’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center sent a letter last year to the city council explaining the memorial would violate the separation of church and state, but no reply was received, the AHA contends.

“The suit contains details about the times several city officials and supporters of the proposed monument publicly declared the Christian symbolism it includes was at least part of the reason they supported its construction. Despite the clearly sectarian motivation for spending public money—and a warning from the town’s attorney that the monument as approved is likely unconstitutional—the city council unanimously voted to approve the monument anyway, saying that they were ‘taking a stand’ for Christianity and against the separation of church and state,” the AHA alleges in a released statement.

Following push back, the city agreed to include the Star of David on the memorial.

After last year's city council vote, Patch asked City Attorney Barbara Leibold for her comment on the issue. She would only say there is “passion on both sides of the issue,” but admitted the city does face potential litigation over the matter. “It’s always the case,” she said.

Last November, Jason Torpy, president of Washington, DC-based Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, also submitted a letter to the Lake Elsinore city clerk and council members requesting the religious symbolism be removed from any proposed design.

The Nov. 7 letter, written “on behalf of military men and women who have served our country in all branches of service and all conflicts of our nation,” makes the request to remove religious symbolism and any “sectarian bias” from the proposed monument or any other future monuments that require city council approval.

“Make the legal choice that honors all our veterans,” the letter reads. “A simple change will still make for a wonderful monument to all veterans.”

The lawsuit, American Humanist Association et al. v. City of Lake Elsinore, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. A copy of the complaint is available here.