The atheist attempt to pull Jesus off the mountain will now to go the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:

The lawsuit was brought by the Madison, Wisconsin-based group the Freedom From Religion Foundation…

Last June, Chief Judge Dana L. Christensen of the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Missoula Division, dismissed the FFRF’s lawsuit.

In a statement regarding the dismissal, FFRF co-presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker said Christensen’s decision was based on “torturous logic.”

As previously noted, the statue has been on the mountain without incident for 60 years. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty noted it took the FFRF, once they decided Jesus had to go, 6 months just to find a plaintiff who would complain.  The atheist group lost their suit and appealed.

Though the statue was explicitly erected in memorial of the 10th Mountain Division (more background here), the FFRF claims to see more than a statue:

When we look at that Jesus statue, we see the continuing efforts of this aggressive, missionizing, male-only Catholic club to deny U.S. women the right to abortion and contraception in the name of Jesus. We also see a disturbing irreverence toward our secular Constitution.

Whether the FFRF sees a Catholic club or not is irrelevant; it matters not to the law. To their final point, the Constitution does not proscribe the presence of religious imagery, even on public land.

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