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ACLU Has Problem With Jesus Portrait on School Wall

by Jim Brown
June 16, 2006
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(AgapePress) - - A pro-family legal group is offering to defend a West Virginia school board that's the target of a lawsuit threat from the ACLU because it has decided not to remove a portrait of Jesus Christ from a local high school.

The Harrison County School Board recently voted 2-2 to leave a portrait of the Savior on the wall of the lobby outside the principal's office at Bridgeport High School. The American Civil Liberties Union has vowed to sue if the board does not remove the picture. In the meantime, the Center for Law & Policy (CLP) -- the legal arm of the American Family Association -- has offered to represent the school board free of charge in the event the ACLU follows through on its threat.

CLP senior litigation counsel Mike DePrimo says the ACLU erroneously claims allowing the picture violates the so-called separation of church and state. He explains that the ACLU is relying upon a case with almost identical facts that was decided in 1994 by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"However, the Ten Commandments cases that were decided by the Supreme Court last term appear to essentially overrule that 1994 case," DePrimo says. "So there's a level playing ground right now, and we think actually the law's pretty good. The mere display of a portrait of Jesus Christ is constitutional."

The attorney contends the ACLU has "bad facts" in this case. The portrait, he notes, has been hanging at the school for some time now.

"This portrait has been on display since 1963," DePrimo points out. "And in the Ten Commandments case of Van Orden v. Perry [last term], the Supreme Court indicated that the length of a display is a critical factor in analyzing its constitutionality. The fact of the matter is that this portrait's been up on the wall for 43 years and created no controversy until this past year or so."

In Van Orden v. Perry, the high court ruled that a Ten Commandments display in the Texas State Capitol could remain because it served a historical purpose.

The Harrison County School Board has yet to contact the Center for Law & Policy.

Bridgeport, population 7,400, is located in north central West Virginia and home to more than a dozen churches.


Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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