Highway billboards selling commercial products are apparently okay in Texas, but not signs displaying the Ten Commandments.
Liberty Institute is fighting for the constitutional rights of Jeanette Golden, a Christian woman in Hemphill, Texas, who has been told by the state she can't put a Ten Commandments sign on her own property adjacent to a highway. The Department of Transportation ordered her to remove the 6-foot x 12-foot sign, then backtracked and said she had to go through numerous hoops to apply for permission.
Attorney Mike Berry of Liberty Institute tells OneNewsNow the latest twist is the state has decided no sign is permitted.
"And another thing that folks should be clear about on this: this is her private property," he points out. "And so for her to engage in religious expression on her own private property and for the Texas Department of Transportation to come in and tell her that she can't do that, that she's basically banned from doing that, is outrageous."
The attorney also notes numerous advertising billboards are erected along the same highway, but the state appears to have no problem with those.
"If they're going to come back and say, Well, we don't have an outright ban – well then in that case it looks like they're just banning her sign, which happens to have religious expression, but they're allowing other types of commercial signs; that would also be unconstitutional as viewpoint discrimination," he explains.
This is doubly shocking to me in that it happened in Texas of all places and in Hemphill which is a small town in deep east Texas famous mostly for its proximity to a beautiful nature and fishing area called Toledo Bend. Stupid government bureaucrats.
We were asked for ID to get into a national park but it is racist to ask for voter ID?~~Comment on FB
The Department of Transportation ordered her to remove the 6-foot x 12-foot sign, then backtracked and said she had to go through numerous hoops to apply for permission.
Oh dear, the bureaucratic shuffle has begun. But not in Texas????? Woah! that's sad!!!
You must have a permit. Ok, I'd like to apply for a permit. I'm sorry we don't have any permits right now, check back with us next week.
******************* "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." Abraham Lincoln
"Either the Republican party will reform itself or its going the way of the wind." Pat Caddell at CPAC
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Tue May 20, 2014 4:30 pm
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Your sign, your property, but take it down!
