Group petitions vote to reinstall monument

BOISE — The organizer of the petition drive to force a vote on reinstalling a Ten Commandments monument in a city park says advocates will go to court if city officials refuse to put a successful initiative on the November ballot.

“That might be the only option,” said Brandi Swindell of the Keep the Commandments Coalition.

Earlier in the week, Boise Mayor Dave Bieter said that city attorneys advised him the proposition being circulated by the coalition deals with an administrative action, not a city ordinance, and therefore is not open to the initiative process.

The city code specifically limits the initiative to ordinances, the attorneys said.

“We wouldn’t be surprised if it leads to litigation,” Bieter said.

Swindell called the decision a shameful attempt to block the democratic process, promising to collect the nearly 8,700 registered voter signatures required under the initiative ordinance.

“They should let the voters vote,” she said. The coalition has until Aug. 13 to collect signatures.

The persisting confrontation over the Ten Commandments monument began last year when a Kansas preacher demanded park space to erect a monument condemning homosexuals, since there was already one extolling religion.

To head that off, the city council voted to remove the Ten Commandments Monument that had been in Julia Davis Park since 1965, donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The Monument was moved in March to an Episcopal cathedral across from the state Capitol downtown.

The coalition’s initiative calls for putting a new Ten Commandments monument in the park and adding two additional monuments.

One would cite Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 religious freedom law in Virginia that asserts a citizen’s right to join or shun a religious organization. The other would state the city’s commitment to religious freedom and acknowledge the secular influence of both monuments.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge ruled in 1995 that a similar group of monuments at the Bannock County Courthouse in Pocatello was constitutional because it put the commandments in a secular context.