Sonoma County did the right thing when Acting County Administrator Chris Thomas consulted with county counsel and followed the case law in the 1989 Supreme Court decision in Allegany v. ACLU, which was on point about presentation of religious totems and trinkets being displayed by government entities.
Thomas and his counsel must have also considered the California Constitution, because I brought its provisions to his attention during our first (and only) face-to-face meeting.
But unlike Professor Rex Grady's attempt to narrow the question to a federal First Amendment issue only (Close to Home column, Dec. 24), my initial discussion with the county of Sonoma was based not only on the First Amendment
of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights
but, more importantly, on the "no preference" sections of California's state constitution
, primarily Article XVI, Section 5, as well as several other sections all of
, which explicitly forbid government entanglement with religion in our state. These state provisions are buttressed by the federal First Amendment and Supreme Court rulings.
Grady went on to characterize Thomas' initial decision banning religious trinkets and totems as "arbitrary" and claims that it rejects "decades of official conduct and community sentiment."
Exactly the opposite is true. Over the past four decades community standards have been evolving in Sonoma County on the question of government and religion. And much of the change and respect for diversity and multi-culturalism has come about from the Peace and Freedom Party's fight against religious bias by our cities, towns and now our county.
In the early 1970s, when the Peace and Freedom Party supported a winning slate of three candidates for Cotati's five-person City Council, one of the first acts of the Peace & Freedom council members, Stephen Laughlin and the late Annette Lombardi, was removal of a religious sign from the city-owned plaza in the center of town. And during the Vietnam War era, Peace and Freedom here encouraged a number of local Vietnam era draftees to resist induction in part by refusing the federal oath of office if it was administered with the religious ending "so help me God."
In the 1980s, Peace & Freedom brought about the end of the state oath's supposedly optional religious reference when the Elections Division began to administer the oath of office to our elected county central committee members as well as to various others of our party's office seekers in a non-sectarian manner.
As we entered the 1990s, local community standards changed in a dramatic and drastic fashion in Sonoma County as Peace and Freedom Party ended city-sponsored prayers: first in 1992 in the city of Santa Rosa, when Presbyterian elder and then-Councilman Dave Berto attempted to reinstitute city-sponsored Christian prayers at council meetings after a 30-year hiatus.
A year later, the Peace and Freedom Party also took on the city of Petaluma's prayer which had been in place for over 50 years. Peace and Freedom, with help from the county's Human Rights Commission, successfully challenged Petaluma's prayers, which only sanctioned a Judeo-Christian version. The annual prayer which had preceded the first council meeting of the year in Rohnert Park since its founding was defeated by Peace and Freedom Party, not once but twice when Mayor Jake Mackenzie attempted to restore the prayer as part of a backroom political deal with some of Rohnert Park's right-wing clergy. Assisted by the local ACLU, we also eliminated Rohnert Park's city seal which had featured a Christian cross on top of a steeple rising out of a church.
If local governments like the county of Sonoma can ignore decisions like the Supreme Court's 1989 Allegany decision, or if the county's Board of Supervisors disregard their oaths to uphold the provisions of the Constitution of the state of California, then we will descend into mob rule where pandering to the majority sentiment of the moment will erode - if not eliminate - the rights of various minorities whether groups or individuals.
Had the state of Alabama been able to ignore or delay for 20 years the 1965 Voting and Civil Rights Act, African-Americans from Selma to Montgomery would have been denied electoral equality until 1985.
Sonoma County must end religious bias toward agnostics, atheists and all others who believe in separation of state and church.
Supervisor Shirlee Zane compares the White House display of holiday decorations to Sonoma County facilities. Zane's analogy fails.
The White House is not where people go to do the people's business. It is a residence, a perk of office, not a place to register to vote, pay taxes, file deeds, record vital statistics or engage in myriad other government services. Zane makes the mistake of saying the initial Thomas ruling would deprive certain county employees the right to bring in and display their own religious symbols on county-provided trees. Zane ignores the question as to whether the county should even be setting the stage for this seasonal Christian event. While pandering to fundamentalist religious groups, Zane's comments show no interest or concern for those county employees who are righteously indignant and offended at such religiosity but who have good reason to fear for their jobs and career advancement should they voice a complaint or concern to their department managers about the county's religious discrimination.
The answer is already laid out for us by the courts and our constitution and by use of our common sense. An appeal to reason requires absolute government neutrality on county government property.
No trees, angels, creches, crosses, Buddhas or animal sacrifices on county property. Religious activity is properly a function of the private sector to be carried out in homes, churches or graveyards.
No religious displays on government land or in government offices ever. Religious institutions do not pay taxes on their property and none of them seem willing to shoulder the financial burden they've dumped on the rest of us.
Irv Sutley is the elected chairman of the Sonoma County Peace and Freedom Party.
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