City Hall Ten Commandments monument surfaces in North Carolina
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WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (AP) -- A granite monument to the Ten Commandments, placed in front of City Hall by a city council member, doesn't help unite people, the mayor said.
"Obviously, if you are going to do something like this, this is not the right way to do it," Mayor Allen Joines said Monday, hours after the monument was installed. "We are working hard to bring the city together. Actions like this tend to push people apart."
City Council member Vernon Robinson, who said he was inspired by Alabama's ousted chief justice, placed the 4-foot-tall granite block in front of City Hall on Monday while it was closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. He said he paid the $2,000 cost of buying and moving the monument himself.
The monument is inscribed on one side with the Ten Commandments and on the other with the Bill of Rights.
"He doesn't have the right to put it there," City Attorney Ron Seeber said. The appropriate process for anyone to put a permanent marker on city property is to petition the council for approval, he said.
The city's staff was to decide Tuesday whether it will take down the marker or ask Robinson to remove it, said Lee Garrity, the assistant city manager for public safety.
Robinson, who is running for the Republican nomination for the 5th Congressional District, said he didn't get permission to put up the marker because he didn't know the procedure.
Robinson, who is black, also said that his action was not intended to clash with King Day celebrations.
"This display is intended to acknowledge the undeniable role that the Ten Commandments and Bill of Rights have played in developing the American legal tradition," Robinson said.
Robinson said he was inspired to act by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who ordered a 21/2-ton Ten Commandments monument placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in 2001.
A federal judge found the monument to be an unconstitutional promotion of religion by government in 2002. Moore was ousted from office last year for violating ethics rules by not obeying the federal court order to remove the monument.
William Van Alstyne, a Duke University professor of constitutional law, said he didn't think that the marker would stand a constitutional test.
"It's merely meant to be provocative," Van Alstyne said. "I can't conceivably imagine it would be allowed to stand."
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