Harris County Bible Update and Opinion

Here is a nice editorial by J. Francis Gardner (sub) in which he advocates for what he calls the "nativity compromise." This is a rather well established method these days for government to put up religious symbols as long as there are symbols from other religions that give it context and prevent the implication that the state is establishing a religion. See Van Orden v. Perry, 351 F.3d 173 (5th Cir., 2003)(Rehearing denied by, and Rehearing, en banc, denied by Van Orden v. Perry, 89 Fed. Appx. 905 (5th Cir., Jan. 5, 2004).

Gardner offers three options:

Add the Torah and the Koran to the case with the Bible (sectarian context).
Add the Code of Hammurabi and the Magna Carta to the case with the Bible (historical context).
Leave the monument as is but arrange for Jewish, Muslim and non-aligned charitable groups to donate their own memorials at the same or similar sites around town (secular context).

These options make sense, were the issue one of context or of presentation. The problem is Harris County has not shown any interest in presenting this bible as anything other than a monument to a specific person, and arguing that the County cannot censor the religious statements. These are the very arguments that were rejected by Judge Lake.

If Harris County was interested in compromise, however, they could consider the third option. Simply make courthouse grounds (perhaps the park planned in front of the new civil courthouse) available to other groups to put up their monuments. Given the religious and cultural diversity in Houston and Harris County, it would not take long for Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, and atheist groups to offer up monuments to their local heroes. They could take down the current monument until such time as other monuments are ready to be placed, and then put them all in at the same time. The appeal would (probably) be moot, and the cost of prosecuting the appeal would likely be commensurate with the cost of execution of the compromise. In the context of other monuments, the Bible would probably lose its special status as an establishment of religion, and may very well become simply a monument to Mosher.

I realize that this sort of compromise is not the kind sought by either side in this appeal, but I think the County should consider its role of representing ALL the people, not just the Christian establishmentarians.