The District is girding for a fight over the Ten Commandments marker planted in a Capitol Hill front yard.
Mayor Anthony Williams’ general counsel, Leonard Becker, has been meeting with top city officials and reviewing the District’s legal standing in the case of Faith and Action’s 850-pound granite monument, which the evangelical Christian organization placed in its front garden on Second Street NE — across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The issue, one city official said, is “under legal review.” District lawyers in the coming weeks will examine competing priorities: the city’s authority over public property versus Faith and Action’s First Amendment right to free speech. That question, one District lawyer said, has not yet been answered.
City Administrator Robert Bobb said Tuesday that he expects a fight over the marker — one that could shine a national spotlight on the District — if the Christian organization and its president, the Rev. Robert Schenck, refuse to secure a permit required by the District Department of Transportation. The city has threatened to impose a $300-per-day fine on Faith and Action if it doesn’t at least start the application process by the end of June.
“We fully anticipate that, as any law-abiding individual, the reverend will be coming in to apply for a permit,” said Lars Etzkorn, the department’s associate director.
Schenck has threatened legal action and said he would very much like to discuss the issue before the Supreme Court’s nine justices.
Because the ministry is in a historic district, the city considersthe front yard to be public property. Regardless, Schenck has said his group has no intention of securing a permit.
More on the monument
» Faith and Action tried but failed to get a permit in 2001
» Monument has rested in a prayer garden behind the ministry for five years
» Group claims to have documented more than 50 displays in nearby front gardens
