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Court upholds ban on Catholic saint statues at new Quincy public-safety building while lawsuit over their installation continues

universalhub.com · 8h · first reportShare

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that several Quincy residents have legal grounds to sue to try to block the mayor from installing large statues of two Catholic saints as part of the city's new police and fire headquarters, which means the city can't actually install the things unless it ultimately vanquishes the residents in their suit over the constitutional ramifications of religious statues towering over visitors to a public building. And while the state's highest court did not settle the lawsuit - sending it back down to Norfolk Superior Court for trial - it rejected Quincy's arguments that the residents didn't make a plausible case why the statues might be offensive to non-Catholics and an affront to the Constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state. In its decision , the state's highest court said the residents have "standing" under the state's "ten-taxpayer" statute, which lets a group of at least ten taxpayers in a city or town go to court to try to block the