NC Politician Appears Fearless Over Anticipated Ten Commandments Clash
by Chad Groening
January 23, 2004
(AgapePress) - A city councilman in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, says he's hoping to find another city or county in his state that is willing to display a Ten Commandments monument that has been removed from his city hall.Vernon Robinson had placed the one-ton monument in front of the Winston-Salem city hall during the recent Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. But on Tuesday, the city removed the monument, saying it was concerned the monolith would topple over. Robinson says that would be very difficult.
"It weighs almost a ton," he points out, "and the only you can knock it over is to hit it with a truck."
Now the city councilman says he wants to find some government entity that is not afraid to take on the American Civil Liberties Union. "We believe [display of the monument is] constitutional, and we're now trying to find a municipality or county in North Carolina that will put it in a public place so we can test it against the ACLU -- the 'Anti-Christian Litigating Unit' -- or an atheist who might sue for that municipality to take it down," he says.
Robinson, who is running for Congress in his North Carolina district, says he is disappointed that his fellow members of the city council decided to remove the monument.
"A number of city employees said it was a beautiful monument and [that] they hoped that it stayed," he says. "And I hoped that the huge outpouring of support, both in the city and across the country, would soften the hard hearts of some of my colleagues on the Council -- but that was not the case."
