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ACLU fights archangel Michael statue honoring cops — but court might not normalize 'heckler's veto'
A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area commissioned a pair of 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside its new public safety headquarters.
Since the statues also carry religious significance — one depicts the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon, and the other depicts Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman Christian — the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of secularizing activist groups joined local thin-skinned critics in suing to block the installation last May.
According to the ACLU, having the two statues as the sole adornments on the building's facade "would undermine religious pluralism in Quincy and violate the Massachusetts Constitution’s long-standing requirement that the government remain neutral in matters of religion."
'Let Quincy pay tribute to its firefighters and police.'
The ensuing legal battle has reached the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the case Fitzmaurice v. City of Quincy.
The defendants' thesis, as outlined in their opening brief to the court, is that symbolism on government property should not become "illegal simply because some citizens perceive it to have religious meaning."
Some of the court's justices, Democrat-appointee Gabrielle Wolohojian in particular, did not appear to be entirely buying what the attorney for the city from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty was selling at the outset despite considering his arguments in a city already replete with public art evoking persons, symbols, and themes of religious significance, including multiple statues of Moses.
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The court proved particularly fixated on whether Florian and Michael's special recognition as saints by the Catholic Church was actually an issue in this case and raised as possibly relevant in a lower court's insinuation that the statues' primary champion, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, was untrustworthy and had worked clandestinely to get the statues funded and installed.
The court was not, however, overly receptive to the ACLU's arguments in favor of denying Quincy first responders their statues, which have been defended in recent months by a plethora of organizations, including the nation’s largest firefighter and police unions, various faith groups, and esteemed constitutional scholars.
One justice questioned whether:
- such legal concern-mongering constitutes a "heckler's veto" that is here at risk of being normalized;
- the plaintiffs were effectively asking the state's high court to "provide less protection than the Supreme Court on free exercise," or "allow more hostility to religion than the Supreme Court would tolerate"; and
- the statues endorsed a particular religion — an especially dubious claim given Florian's secular, historical significance and the archangel Michael's significance in multiple distinct faiths as well as in popular culture and literature.
Tom Bowes, president of Quincy's Firefighters Local 792, said in a statement, "For generations, Florian’s legacy has inspired the brave men and women who run toward danger when others need help. We hope the court allows Quincy to honor that tradition and the first responders who live it every day."
Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the city, said, "In this country, public art doesn't become off-limits just because it may make some people think about religion. We’re confident the justices will apply that commonsense rule here and let Quincy pay tribute to its firefighters and police."
Eric Rassbach, another attorney at Becket, said in the wake of the hearing on Wednesday that the ACLU's argument largely "relied on the supposedly dead legal standard known as the Lemon test, which SCOTUS abrogated."
"For decades, the unusuable Lemon test produced confusion and split decisions in cases involving religious symbols," continued Rassbach. "That changed in 2019, when SCOTUS ruled 7-2 in [American Legion v. American Humanist Association] that the First Amendment does not require removing a WWI memorial cross and made clear that Lemon no longer applies."
While the Supreme Court rejected the relevance of the test articulated by SCOTUS in its 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling as a way of guiding the court in identifying Establishment Clause violations, Norfolk Superior Court Judge William Sullivan previously leaned heavily on it in the Quincy case.
"It would be a bizarre move for Massachusetts to revive a test that failed so badly at the federal level, especially since Lemon has no grounding in the Commonwealth’s Constitution," wrote Rassbach. "That document takes a different approach: It recognizes the vital role of religion in public life while guaranteeing equal protection for all religious denominations. That’s a far cry from forcing cities to scrub anything that smacks of the religious from all public property."
The court is expected to deliver its decision sometime this fall.
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Archangel Michael statue may yet win the battle against the ACLU after an army of warriors rallies to its cause
A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area commissioned a pair of 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside their new public safety headquarters.
Upon learning that the city of Quincy's new statues — one depicting Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman Christian, and the other depicting the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon — also carried religious significance, the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of secularizing activist groups joined a few locals in suing last May to block the installation.
'The ACLU has pitted itself against the very heroes who keep our communities safe.'
The city, which will make its case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court with the help of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on May 6, has received an outpouring of support from first responders' groups and unions, religious groups, and others keen to defend free speech found intolerable by thin-skinned critics.
The International Association of Fire Fighters and its Bay State affiliate, among the groups that submitted court filings in support of the city, noted that "for the firefighting community, there is perhaps no better image for this project than St. Florian."
Norfolk Superior Court Judge William Sullivan, the Democratic appointee who blocked the planned installation in October, previously argued that the statues "serve no discernable secular purpose."
The IAFF flatly rejected that argument.
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"Florian, to be sure, is venerated as a Catholic saint. But that isn't why the City of Quincy is putting him on its public safety building," the IAFF's court filing reads. "Rather, that choice reflects a centuries-old tradition that honors Florian — entirely apart from his significance in the Catholic Church — as a symbol of the courage, selflessness, and sacrifice of firefighters around the world."
Moreover, the association underscored that Florian's legend is now "part of the cultural fabric of firefighting."
The National Association of Police Organizations similarly said of the St. Michael statue, "Although Michael's origins are religious, his significance extends far beyond that context. He is the archetype of core law-enforcement virtues: justice, courage, leadership, and defense of the innocent."
The National Fraternal Order of Police echoed this understanding and drove the point home:
The erection of these statues shows no semblance of religious subordination or favoritism. For this Court to prohibit these statues would not only run contrary to the text and purpose of the Religion Clauses of the Massachusetts Constitution but would also rob the people of Quincy of a special opportunity to honor their firefighters and police officers.
While the Knights of Columbus highlighted America's and Massachusetts' rich histories of acknowledging religion in public art, the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty discussed the likely fallout of the ACLU prevailing in this case and how that result might disproportionately impact minority faiths.
They noted, for example, that a ruling against Quincy might set a precedent for denying practicing Jews the ability to build an eruv in public — a demarcated area, created by placing nearly invisible wires on existing utility poles, that permits Jews to carry essential items on the Sabbath.
The American Legion said in its filing that giving the secularists a win here "would put the Massachusetts Constitution on a collision court with the federal one." The Legion noted further that while a state may not favor a religion, it "also may not favor nonreligion by adopting a posture of hostility towards faith."
Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and attorney for Quincy, stated, "By picking this fight, the ACLU has pitted itself against the very heroes who keep our communities safe."
"This broad coalition of firefighters and police — along with diverse faith communities, public policy experts, and legal scholars — proves just how out of touch the ACLU has become," Davis continued. "We’re hopeful the court will see through this attack and side with Quincy."
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SCOTUS asks pointed questions as fate of Trump's birthright citizenship order hangs in the balance
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the case challenging President Donald Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship.
Trump made history by being the first sitting president to attend a SCOTUS hearing. He attended for over an hour, departing shortly after the solicitor general, John Sauer, concluded his arguments.
'Why put it in if it's irrelevant?'
Shortly after noon on Wednesday, Trump wrote in a post on social media, "We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow 'Birthright' Citizenship!"
Sauer previously claimed that lower-court rulings finding Trump's executive order unconstitutional were overly broad and incorrectly held that "birth on U.S. territory confers citizenship on anyone subject to the regulatory reach of U.S. law."
During Wednesday's arguments, Sauer contended that the 14th Amendment phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" requires parents of a child to be domiciled in the U.S. and have allegiance to it.
He explained that the citizenship clause was enacted after the Civil War to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children whose allegiance to the U.S. "had been established by generations of domicile here."
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"It did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance. This conclusion reflects the original public meaning of the clause," he stated.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts called Sauer’s argument “very quirky.”
"Well, starting with that theory, you obviously put a lot of weight on 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof,'" Roberts stated. "But the examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky."
"Children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships," Roberts continued. "And then you expand it to a whole class of, illegal aliens are here in the country. I'm not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples."
Sauer argued that birthright citizenship has generated "a sprawling industry of birth tourism," adding that "uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States."
American Civil Liberties Union legal director Cecillia Wang argued before SCOTUS against Trump's executive order.
Wang was pressed about U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, an 1898 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that a child born in the U.S. to Chinese citizen parents was an American citizen. While the ruling set the precedent for anyone born in the U.S., Ark's parents were both legally domiciled in the U.S.
"Thirty years after ratification, this court held that the 14th Amendment embodies the English common law rule," Wang stated during Wednesday's hearing. "Virtually everyone born on U.S. soil is subject to its jurisdiction and is a citizen."
"The majority tells us six times in the opinion that domicile is irrelevant under common law," Wang added.
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Justice Samuel Alito pushed back on Wang's arguments, stating that he "might agree" with her "if 'domicile' had simply been sprinkled in the opinion," though it appeared 20 times.
"Why put it in if it's irrelevant?" Alito asked Wang.
"The first is that, again, it was a stipulated fact," Wang responded. "The second is that regardless of what the judgment in the case was … the rule of decision in Wong Kim Ark has binding precedential effect. Even if you think that Wong Kim Ark decided the case based on the stipulated facts, you have to follow that controlling rule of decision. And if you follow that rule, you get to the same result."
Justice Elena Kagan appeared to share Alito's concern, stating, "What are those 20 'domicile' words doing there? You can take some of them and say, 'I don't know; they were just summarizing the facts of the case,' but not all of them."
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A blasphemy-light bill arrives in Virginia — and the ACLU clams up
Zohran Mamdani has wasted no time turning religious language into shocking political branding. This month, he invoked Muhammad while defending Democrats’ mass-migration posture. He also became the first New York City mayor to skip the installation of a Catholic archbishop.
Public officials can practice any faith. They can speak openly about it. The line gets crossed when government starts treating one religion as a protected political category — especially through the criminal code.
To overthrow liberal democracy, the far left needs Islam’s numbers, while Islam needs the far left’s organization.
That line is about to be obliterated in Virginia.
A Bangladesh-born Democrat state senator, Saddam Azlan Salim, introduced SB624, a bill aimed at writing a formal definition of “Islamophobia” into Virginia’s assault and battery laws. The bill would single out Islam for special treatment. No other religion would receive the same statutory carve-out.
The bill defines Islamophobia as “malicious prejudice or hatred directed toward Islam or Muslims.” The definition applies “regardless of whether the victim is actually a practitioner of Islam, provided that the perpetrator targeted such victim based on a perceived adherence to such faith.”
Is it Islamophobic to walk a dog or eat bacon or spread the gospel in the presence of a devout Muslim? If not, why not? And do we really want to test it?
People use Islamophobia as a cudgel to silence legitimate criticism of doctrine, immigration policy, and jihadism at home and abroad. A vague, politically loaded term does not belong in criminal law. It invites selective enforcement. It chills speech. It hands politicians a ready-made pretext to jail dissenters.
Call it what it is: one more step toward a blasphemy-style speech regime, enforced by the state.
In a world in which leftists — and even some conservatives — believe “hate speech isn’t free speech,” Salim’s bill should set off alarm bells for any civil liberties group that claims to defend the freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.
And yet the American Civil Liberties Union has remained resolutely silent.
The ACLU’s “Religious Liberty” page claims it exists “to safeguard the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty by ensuring that laws and governmental practices neither promote religion nor interfere with its free exercise.”
Given that Islam commands the erasureany kind of secular and sectarian division, you’d think the ACLU’s rabid dogs would be on guard against its encroachment.
Instead, the ACLU maintains a page dedicated to opposing “anti-Muslim discrimination,” while boasting of its opposition to a Jewish charter school in Oklahoma.
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The “red-green alliance” between domestic communists and Muslim invaders is the greatest threat currently facing Western countries today.
In a talk at Oxford University’s Student Union, Peter Thiel laid out the stark choice between the West continuing to flounder under the illusion that clean energy policies would drive global prosperity and the Islamic worldview, which prioritizes domination.
To overthrow liberal democracy, the far left needs Islam’s numbers, while Islam needs the far left’s organization. They have a common enemy — conservatives defending the countries their ancestors built for them — but without that enemy, these groups should actually despise each other.
The same day Mamdani invoked the name of the warlord Muhammad in the cause of open borders, the ACLU’s Instagram page shared a post about how hard it is to be “a queer teen in Idaho!” (Strangely enough, no mention about how hard it is to be a queer teen in any of the more than 50 countries that have been enslaved by Islam.)
This year we will mark the 10th anniversary of the Pulse Night Club shooting, when Omar Mateen — a Muslim Democrat — murdered 49 gay people and wounded 50 more. But in the ACLU’s response, the organization refused to mention Mateen’s name and indeed warned that his massacre of sexual minorities fit a “more politically convenient narrative fed by anti-Muslim fear and hate.”
What a reassuring thing to say to all the affected families in Orlando!
The ACLU is not an organization that subscribes to any kind of moral code. At best, it is a drive-by lawsuit factory. At worst, it is a legal arm of terrorists that openly welcomes foreign donations, which undermines American sovereignty. All the ACLU cares about is power — which, come to think of it, is something the group truly has in common with jihadists.
Here’s How Professional Activists Use Guerrilla Tactics To Sabotage ICE Arrests
Renee Good, fatally shot by an ICE agent this week in Minneapolis, was a 'warrior' for the anti-ICE group, the New York Post reports.It’s Time For SCOTUS To Hold Rogue Judges Accountable
'[The ruling] was a warning shot across the bows of judges making basically policy decisions in all of these cases,' said Hans von Spakovsky.Today's top stories
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