Palm Beach Christians Win Religious Freedom Fight With City
by Allie Martin
July 2, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Florida town has paid attorneys' fees and apologized to the two women who were told they could not donate a nativity scene for display alongside two government-sponsored Jewish menorahs during this past Christmas season. Last year Palm Beach residents Maureen Donnel and Fern Tailer Denarvaez approached city officials about donating Christian nativity scenes for public display. However, their offer was repeatedly ignored by the officials, who later said such displays were unconstitutional.
After being stonewalled by the Palm Beach officials, the two women finally contacted the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, which eventually sued the city, claiming discrimination. A federal district court judge subsequently ruled in the plaintiffs' favor, ordering Palm Beach to pay them $50,000 in attorney fees, and also to apologize to the two women.
Edward White is associate counsel with the Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm that defends many religious freedom cases. "The bottom line message is that towns should not ignore their citizens' requests, that towns can allow religious displays to be put up on public property, and that should do that," he says.
"And that if they don't," the attorney adds, "lawsuits will be filed, and they'll have to pay money when they didn't have to pay money."
White notes that Palm Beach officials had permitted the public display of menorahs at a number of prominent public locations, and that the city obviously should have given all religious symbols equal treatment. He says by refusing to act on the Christian residents' request to erect a display, the officials brought on legal action that never should have become necessary.
"There was no need for the lawsuit. The only reason there was a lawsuit is because our clients were never responded to by the town," White says, "and all this could have been easily avoided."
Thomas More's president and chief counsel, Richard Thompson, agrees that the lawsuit and the legal expenses in this case need never have occurred, and he insists they would not have occurred if the city of Palm Beach had shown "some common courtesy toward two of its residents." Thompson says hopefully the ruling in the case will bring an end to the town's discrimination against the Christian faith during the Christmas holiday season.
