Illinois Church Sues, Gets Permit to Hold Marine's Memorial Service
by Jim Brown
June 14, 2006
(AgapePress) - - An Illinois town has had a change of heart and will now allow the family of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq to hold a memorial service at a small evangelical church. Wadsworth village trustees originally told relatives of Staff Sergeant Edward Davis they could not hold their regular worship service or the memorial service it had planned for this Thursday at Cornerstone Community Church.The reason the local officials gave for refusing the family of the fallen soldier was that landscaping had not been completed on the new church grounds. Cornerstone filed a lawsuit challenging the ban, after which Wadsworth issued the congregation a 30-day temporary permit allowing the memorial service to go forward as planned.
John Mauck, an attorney for the church, says the property may not meet the local officials' aesthetic requirements, but it does meet the necessary health and safety requirements. "They don't need to have the landscaping finished," he asserts.
Cornerstone has posted a $104,000 letter of credit and obviously cannot put in all the landscaping all at once, Mauck points out. "It's a 25-acre piece of land," he says. "We think the village is just taking an unreasonable position."
Mauck suspects Wadsworth of offering the temporary concession in response to the negative publicity and attention the matter was generating. "The city may have just backed down because of the public outcry and the focus, which was intense," he says.
When the trustees were saying they would not allow a veteran of the Iraq war to be honored and memorialized at Cornerstone, the congregation's attorney observes, "that got people of every political persuasion and every religious persuasion outraged." He believes the village issued the temporary permit in response to an outpouring of citizen indignation.
However, the Wadsworth officials continue to claim that Cornerstone's property does not meet health and safety standards. "So," Mauck insists, "until everything's settled, no lawsuit will be dropped."
According to a Suburban Chicago News report, Cornerstone started holding services in its newly built, partially completed sanctuary on April 2. Officials with the church say they were given verbal approval to resume occupancy, a claim Wadsworth officials dispute.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
