Court rules the monuments outside Bloomfield City Hall, including the Ten Commandments, are government speech because they are permanent displays on city property 
 
 Buy Photo The Ten Commandments monument outside Bloomfield City Hall is pictured on Thursday. (Photo: Jon Austria/The Daily Times)Buy Photo 
 
 FARMINGTON — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld a federal judge's ruling that a Ten Commandments monument erected in 2011 outside of Bloomfield City Hall violates the U.S. Constitution. 
 
 The court of appeals ruled Wednesday that the monument would be seen by an objective observer as a religious endorsement by Bloomfield's government. 
 
 The monument was first proposed by Kevin Mauzy in 2007. Mauzy, who was serving as city councilor at the time, collected donations to pay for the monument. The monument received its final approval in 2011, when Mauzy was no longer a city councilor. Within a year of the monument’s unveiling, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the city on behalf of two Wiccan residents. 
 
 “We’re obviously disappointed with the decision,” said Jonathan Scruggs, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Scottsdale, Ariz.,-based nonprofit Christian organization representing the city. 
 
 “We’re obviously disappointed with the decision.” Jonathan Scruggs, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the nonprofit Christian organization representing Bloomfield 
 
 Scruggs said the Alliance Defending Freedom and Bloomfield are evaluating options, including appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mayor Scott Eckstein said the city has not decided if it will appeal. 
 
 "We obviously will defend our clients' position in any court," said Andy Schultz, an attorney with Rodey Law Firm in Albuquerque who represented the ACLU in the case. 
 
 Schultz said the lawsuit must be examined in context of the history of the monument. Prior to the construction of the monument, there was nothing on the lawn outside of the city hall. A formal policy regarding such displays was adopted months after the Bloomfield City Council approved the monument. 
 
 Scruggs and city officials have argued that the policy allows any resident to erect a historical monument. 
 
 “It’s in black and white ink,” he said. “Anyone could go and read it.” 
 
 Buy Photo The Ten Commandments monument outside Bloomfield City Hall is pictured on Thursday. (Photo: Jon Austria/The Daily Times) 
 
 The court ruled that monuments at City Hall — which now include the Ten Commandments, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence — are government speech because they are permanent displays on city property. 
 
 Scruggs argues that disclaimers at the site state that the city does not endorse the monument. 
 
 "The city is not playing favorites here,” Scruggs argued. “It’s allowing anyone to erect a monument on the lawn as long as it’s historical.” 
 
 The court ruled the disclaimers — an engraving on the monument and a sign — are not enough. 
 
 In the ruling, the court states that "a reasonable observer might have to get on his knees and inspect closely" to read the disclaimer engraved on the monument. The court compared the disclaimer to "rapid-fire warnings at the end of prescription drug commercials, where it is obvious the company has slipped them in as a barely audible afterthought just to comply with the rules." 
 
 The court also ruled that a disclaimer sign on the lawn does not negate the religious message communicated by the monument and the presence of other monuments is not enough to mitigate it. 
 
 Hannah Grover covers government for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4652. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://www.daily-times.com/story/news/local/bloomfield/2016/11/10/court-rules-bloomfield-must-remove-monument/93593802/ ||||| A federal appeals court has ruled that Bloomfield’s Ten Commandments monument violates the U.S. Constitution, but a lawyer for the northwestern New Mexico city says it may appeal the ruling. 
 
 The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision Wednesday said Bloomfield’s monument violates a First Amendment prohibition against endorsing religion partly because of the apparent motivation in allowing installation of the monument on a lawn in front of City Hall. 
 
 Attorney Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an advocacy group defending the city in the case, said Bloomfield may appeal the 10th U.S. Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. 
 
 The Bloomfield City Council approved a now-former councilor’s request for approval of placement of a Ten Commandments monument. The council then arranged for construction of the 3,400-pound memorial, and churches made donations to pay for it. 
 
 The 10th Circuit said circumstances may permit some government displays of the Ten Commandments to pass constitutional muster but that wasn’t so with Bloomfield’s monument. 
 
 Given the fundraising, the monument’s plainly religious text and religious aspects of the installation ceremony, “any reasonable and objective observer would glean an apparent religious motivation from these circumstances,” the 10th Circuit decision stated. 
 
 The case stems from a 2012 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of by two residents who practice the Wiccan religion and who said they were offended by the monument. 
 
 The ACLU supports the right of individuals and organizations to create religious displays on private property, but “Bloomfield shouldn’t be in the business of deciding which set of beliefs should be favored from among the diverse religious traditions and beliefs held by its citizens,” said Peter Simonson, executive director of ACLU of New Mexico. 
 
 Scruggs said a constitutional violation doesn’t occur simply because a person encounters speech he finds disagreeable. “In this case, a Ten Commandments monument nestled among many other monuments honoring significant documents in American history shouldn’t be attacked simply because two people feel offended by it.” ||||| Home Daily News City Ten Commandments display violates establishment… 
 
 Religious Law 
 
 City Ten Commandments display violates establishment clause, 10th Circuit rules 
 
 Ten Commandments display on the city hall lawn in Bloomfield, New Mexico. 
 
 A Ten Commandments display on the city hall lawn in Bloomfield, New Mexico, violates the establishment clause, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday. 
 
 The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a suit by two Wiccans. How Appealing links to the decision (PDF). 
 
 The 10th Circuit found a constitutional violation, even though private funds were used to pay for the monument, and despite a small disclaimer on the tablet that says any message is from the donors, rather than the city. 
 
 A second, freestanding sign also carries a disclaimer saying the lawn has been opened up as a public forum for local citizens to display monuments reflecting the city’s history of law and government. The monument messages do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the city, the freestanding sign says. 
 
 The 3,400-pound, 5-foot tall monument was erected on the city hall lawn in July 2011. Monuments depicting the Gettysburg Address and the Bill of Rights were installed in 2012 and 2014. 
 
 Permanent monuments are government speech, regardless of who pays for them, the 10th Circuit said. Though the Supreme Court has not detailed the meaning of permanent, “we are confident the Ten Commandments here met the standard.” The city had pointed to a policy that made monument donors reapply every 10 years for the right to keep them, but the 10th Circuit said it made no difference. 
 
 “Any monument can be removed with a big enough construction crew,” the court said. “But Bloomfield has no plans to remove the monument and imposes no limit on how many 10-year periods will be permitted.” 
 
 The court also said the purpose and context of the installation of the monument “would give an objective observer the impression of official religious endorsement.” 
 
 The text of the monument is religious, it is located in front of Bloomfield’s principal government building, and it is visible to nearby onlookers as well as drivers on the highway, the court said. In addition, the city council member who proposed the idea at first raised funds only through churches, and the monument dedication ceremony was “decidedly religious.” 
 
 The disclaimers weren’t sufficient to insulate the city, the appeals court said. “Context reveals what the disclaimer’s text attempts to obscure,” the decision said. And the addition of two other monuments was not enough to secularize the religious message of the Ten Commandments monument, according to the court. 
 
 “The impermissible taint of endorsement remains,” the court concluded. 
 
 Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the city, said in a statement that it is consulting with its client to consider options for appeal. 
 
 The case is Felix v. City of Bloomfield.
– Much like those "rapid-fire warnings at the end of prescription drug commercials," a disclaimer on a Ten Commandments monument in New Mexico might require "a reasonable observer … to get on his knees" to read it, an appeals declared this week. That was one of the factors in its decision that the monument's home on Bloomfield city property is unconstitutional, the Farmington Daily Times reports. The US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled Wednesday that the monument—described by the ABA Journal as a 5-foot-tall, 3,400-pound structure erected in 2011 on the City Hall's lawn—"would give an objective observer the impression of official religious endorsement," given that it's right next to the city's main government building. Per the Durango Herald, the case came out of a 2012 lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of two local Wiccan followers who said they were offended by the structure. But Jonathan Scruggs, an attorney with the advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which is working with the city, points out that monuments honoring other "significant documents in American history" are also nestled close by—one for the Gettysburg Address, as well as one for the Bill of Rights. "The city is not playing favorites here," he says. "It's allowing anyone to erect a monument on the lawn as long as it's historical." The court disagreed, citing the "impermissible taint of endorsement." (A Texas county agreed to remove crosses from cop cars.)