Aug 24, 2004 - 23:21:10 CDT
FARGO -- A touring monument of the Ten Commandments stopped here Tuesday as lawyers moved ahead with a lawsuit opposing a similar marker outside Fargo's City Hall.A small group of supporters gathered at the Fargo Civic Center for a rally featuring the 5,280-pound Ten Commandments monument owned by Roy Moore, the former Alabama chief justice ousted for refusing to remove the monument from the state courthouse.
"I don't think people rec-ognize our freedom is under assault," said the Rev. Mark Skogerboe, of New Hope, Minn., one of the rally's organizers. "Because the loss of freedom is gradual, one court decision at a time."
Skogerboe, who represents Texas-based Christian group Vision America, said one of the organization's goals is to make sure Fargo's Ten Commandments monument stays put.
He urged supporters to resist moving the monument with prayers, but also told military veterans to physically rebuff attempts to remove Fargo's Ten Commandments.
"They must stand here and be hauled away in chains when they come to haul this away," he said. "The price of freedom is blood."
Five Fargo men -- Wesley Twombly, Davis Cope, Jon Lindgren, Lewis Lubka and William Treumann -- filed a lawsuit in federal court in 2002, seeking to get the Ten Commandments marker removed from the City Hall's mall area.
The men contend it violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
Fargo officials say the city has not used taxpayer money for the monument and say the marker does not interfere with its opponents' use of the mall grounds.
The Fargo case has been awaiting the outcome of a similar case in Nebraska, which is before a federal appeals court. But last week, U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson ruled that some facts in the Nebraska case are different from the Fargo case, and that each could stand on its own.
Attorneys from each side in the Fargo lawsuit planned a telephone conference Tuesday to figure out a timeline to move the case forward.
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