Blue-state city leans into battle against ACLU over archangel Michael statue honoring police

A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area has made abundantly clear that it will not be dominated by the sensitivities of activists — those whose apparent discomfort with America’s Christian inheritance has them fighting to hide civic symbols of courage, honor, and bravery.

Dealt a legal setback in October, the city of Quincy is now asking the state’s top court to weigh in on the matter of an angel and a saintly firefighter.

Saints and iconoclasts

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch commissioned renowned sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov to design two 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside their new public safety headquarters.

While the city had erected other statues by Eylanbekov without issue, this time was different as the new statues also carried religious significance — one depicting Florian, a 3rd-century firefighting Roman Christian, and the other depicting the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon.

The statues have many fans in the community, including Quincy Police Chief Mark Kennedy, who indicated he feels “honored” by the Michael statue, and Quincy Firefighters Local 792 president Tom Bowes, who said, “Florian embodies the values that are most important to our work as firefighters: honor, courage, and bravery.”

Not all were, however, pleased.

‘If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone.’

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined a handful of locals in suing last May to block the installation.

Among the plaintiffs are:

• a Unitarian social justice warrior;
• a self-identified Catholic who finds the “violent imagery” of good triumphing over evil to be “offensive”;
• a local synagogue member who suggested the images “may exacerbate the current rise in anti-Semitism”;
• an Episcopalian who believes that walking past such statues would amount to “submission to religious symbols”; and
• a lapsed Catholic who suggested the image of Michael stepping on the head of a demon was “reminiscent of how George Floyd was killed.”

Their lawsuit claimed that “affixing religious icons of one particular faith to a government facility — the city’s public safety building, no less — sends an alarming message that those who do not subscribe to the city’s preferred religious beliefs are second-class residents who should not feel safe, welcomed, or equally respected by their government.”

The complaint strategically neglected to mention the significance of Michael in other religions, in the Western literary canon, and pop culture. Similarly, it largely glossed over Florian’s potential secular appeal, emphasizing his recognition by Catholics as a saint.

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Detail from 17th century painting of Michael vanquishing Satan. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Mayor Koch emphasized in an affidavit that “the selection had nothing to do with Catholic sainthood, but rather was an effort to boost morale and to symbolize the values of truth, justice, and the prevalence of good over evil.”

The plaintiffs evidently saw things differently as their complaint suggested the statues’ installation “will not serve a predominantly secular purpose,” but rather to “promote, promulgate, and advance one faith, subordinating other faiths as well as nonreligious traditions.”

Setback

Norfolk Superior Court obliged the iconoclasts in October, blocking the planned installation of the already purchased and completed statues while the case proceeds.

Judge William Sullivan, a Democratic appointee, said in his ruling that “the Complaint raises colorable concerns that members of the community not adherent to Catholicism or Christian teaching who pass beneath the two statues to report a crime may reasonably question whether they will be treated equally.”

The judge suggested further that the statues “serve no discernable secular purpose.”

“Although defendants argue that the public has an interest in inspiring the city’s first responders in carrying out their work to maximum effectiveness, the court does not conceive the ability, commitment, and enthusiasm of members of the Quincy Police and Fire Departments to serve the communities will be appreciably undermined if the two statues are absent for the duration of this litigation,” added Sullivan.

The ACLU — which has alternatively defended the erection of satanic displays on public grounds — celebrated the ruling with Massachusetts chapter staff attorney Rachel Davidson thanking Sullivan for “acknowledging the immediate harm that the installation of these statues would cause.”

Onwards and upwards

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed last month to hear an appeal of the lesser court’s ruling — an opportunity welcomed both by the ACLU of Massachusetts and the city of Quincy.

“We look forward to defending Quincy’s plan to honor our brave first responders at the Massachusetts high court,” Mayor Koch said at the time.

The city — represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Quincy solicitor James Timmins — filed a brief with the SJC on Wednesday, making mince meat of the activists’ arguments and underscoring the statues’ permissibility under the law.

The brief reiterated that the statues have a secular purpose; their primary effect will not be to advance religion; and their prohibition based on religious hostility would violate the U.S. Constitution.

The brief noted further that the plaintiffs lack standing “since merely observing public symbols one finds disagreeable is not a cognizable injury” and that “the placement of inanimate statues as public art on a public building does not implicate direct support of religion in any manner, let alone the subordination by law of some faiths to others.”

To prohibit the statues would also be “at odds with the robust history of public display of other symbols with religious significance” in the state, said the brief.

There are, for instance, statues of Moses and “Religion” in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courthouse; a statue of Pope John Paul II — a Catholic saint — in the Boston Common; and a statue of Quaker martyr Mary Dyer outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

“The ACLU’s theory in this case is tragically simple: If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone,” Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the city of Quincy, said in a statement.

“The ACLU’s radical rule flouts our nation’s civic heritage and decades of court decisions,” continued Davis. “The Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court should reject the ACLU’s Puritanical demands and make clear that artworks don’t have to be purged from the public square just because they might make someone think of religion.”

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