The Volokh Conspiracy - Painting of Jesus in Louisiana Courthouse:

The New Orleans Times Picayune reports:

A portrait of Jesus Christ that hangs in the lobby of Slidell City Court violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, specifically a mandate calling for the separation of church and state, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Louisiana ACLU....

Vincent Booth, acting executive director and board president for the ACLU, said after filing the suit that he believes the portrait, along with lettering beneath that says, "To know peace, obey these laws," violates established U.S. Supreme Court law....

A local priest has identified the portrait as "Christ the Savior," a 16th Century Russian Orthodox icon. It depicts Jesus holding a book open to biblical passages, written in Russian, that deal with judgment. The ACLU says the book is the New Testament.

ERROR IN THE FOLLOWING TWO PARAGRAPHS AND THE PHOTO: ~~The icon, according to this blog post, is this:~~

The reproduction is a little fuzzy, so I'm not positive about the entirety of the text; but at least the first two thirds are a Russian version of John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." (For the modern Russian version, see here.) END ERROR.

CORRECTION: The blog post on which I relied for a copy of the icon appears to have been incorrect. The correct photo, according to AP and Yahoo! News Photos, is this:

I can't read the text, but this site, which discusses what appears to be this icon, independently of the Slidell controversy, reports that the text corresponds to John 7:24 ("Judge not according to the appearance, but judge with righteous judgement") and Matthew 7:2 ("For with what judgement you judge, you shall be judged"). This is indeed more courthouse-related text than what I understood the quote to be earlier. END CORRECTION.

My sense is that even under Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion (joined by Justice Thomas and Chief Justice Rehnquist) in one of the Ten Commandments cases, such an overt reference to Christianity and to a New Testament verse would be impermissible: Justice Scalia, after all, stressed that he viewed Ten Commandments displays as permissible because they are essentially endorsed by "such a broad and diverse range of the population — from Christians to Muslims — that they cannot be reasonably understood as a government endorsement of a particular religious viewpoint."

He also wrote that "The Establishment Clause would prohibit, for example, governmental endorsement of a particular version of the Decalogue as authoritative," and rejected Justice Stevens's argument that the Scalia approach would read the Establishment Clause as "protecting only the Christian religion or perhaps only Protestantism": "All of the actions of Washington and the First Congress upon which I have relied, virtually all Thanksgiving Proclamations throughout our history, and all the other examples of our Government's favoring religion that I have cited, have invoked God, but not Jesus Christ.

Perhaps Justice Scalia should have taken the broader view that the Establishment Clause allows all government endorsement of religion, or at least of Christianity generally; and it's possible that he took this view in the creche cases. But his Ten Commandments opinion takes a view that is more restrictive of government religious speech, and under this view it seems that the Slidell painting may not be displayed.

The Alliance Defense Fund, which has agreed to represent the court, responds:

"The First Amendment allows public officials, and not the ACLU, to decide what is appropriate for acknowledging our nation's religious history and heritage. The painting clearly delivers an inclusive message of equal justice under the law," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "It is mind-boggling that the ACLU would oppose such a widely cherished idea simply because it is offended by the image in the painting."

"The ideas expressed in this painting aren't specific to any one faith, and they certainly don't establish a single state religion," Johnson explained. "The reason Americans enjoy equal justice is because we are all 'created equal, endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights.' This painting is a clear reflection of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence." ...

It's hard for me to see how such an ecumenical perspective can be read into a painting of Jesus holding a fragment from the New Testament (or, if the theory is that the text is irrelevant because next to no-one would understand it, we can just settle on this being a painting of Jesus with some undefined pronouncement), coupled with "To know peace, obey these laws," presumably referring to the laws expounded by Jesus.

Thanks to Frank Bell for pointers to the story and to the icon.

UPDATE: I should stress that this seems to be a standalone painting, and one that isn't just displayed as a work of art for art's sake — the "lettering beneath that says, 'To know peace, obey these laws'" suggests the court authorities are trying to send a normative message with the painting, not just to display a historically interesting or significant artifact.

	[Eugene Volokh, July 5, 2007 at 6:23pm] Trackbacks Painting of Jesus in Louisiana Courthouse: The New Orleans Times Picayune reports: A portrait of Jesus Christ that hangs in the lobby of Slidell City Court violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, specifically a mandate calling for the separation of church and state, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Louisiana ACLU.... Vincent Booth, acting executive director and board president for the ACLU, said after filing the suit that he believes the portrait, along with lettering beneath that says, "To know peace, obey these laws," violates established U.S. Supreme Court law.... A local priest has identified the portrait as "Christ the Savior," a 16th Century Russian Orthodox icon. It depicts Jesus holding a book open to biblical passages, written in Russian, that deal with judgment. The ACLU says the book is the New Testament. ERROR IN THE FOLLOWING TWO PARAGRAPHS AND THE PHOTO: ~~The icon, according to this blog post, is this:~~ The reproduction is a little fuzzy, so I'm not positive about the entirety of the text; but at least the first two thirds are a Russian version of John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." (For the modern Russian version, see here.) END ERROR. CORRECTION: The blog post on which I relied for a copy of the icon appears to have been incorrect. The correct photo, according to AP and Yahoo! News Photos, is this: I can't read the text, but this site, which discusses what appears to be this icon, independently of the Slidell controversy, reports that the text corresponds to John 7:24 ("Judge not according to the appearance, but judge with righteous judgement") and Matthew 7:2 ("For with what judgement you judge, you shall be judged"). This is indeed more courthouse-related text than what I understood the quote to be earlier. END CORRECTION. My sense is that even under Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion (joined by Justice Thomas and Chief Justice Rehnquist) in one of the Ten Commandments cases, such an overt reference to Christianity and to a New Testament verse would be impermissible: Justice Scalia, after all, stressed that he viewed Ten Commandments displays as permissible because they are essentially endorsed by "such a broad and diverse range of the population — from Christians to Muslims — that they cannot be reasonably understood as a government endorsement of a particular religious viewpoint." He also wrote that "The Establishment Clause would prohibit, for example, governmental endorsement of a particular version of the Decalogue as authoritative," and rejected Justice Stevens's argument that the Scalia approach would read the Establishment Clause as "protecting only the Christian religion or perhaps only Protestantism": "All of the actions of Washington and the First Congress upon which I have relied, virtually all Thanksgiving Proclamations throughout our history, and all the other examples of our Government's favoring religion that I have cited, have invoked God, but not Jesus Christ. Perhaps Justice Scalia should have taken the broader view that the Establishment Clause allows all government endorsement of religion, or at least of Christianity generally; and it's possible that he took this view in the creche cases. But his Ten Commandments opinion takes a view that is more restrictive of government religious speech, and under this view it seems that the Slidell painting may not be displayed. The Alliance Defense Fund, which has agreed to represent the court, responds: "The First Amendment allows public officials, and not the ACLU, to decide what is appropriate for acknowledging our nation's religious history and heritage. The painting clearly delivers an inclusive message of equal justice under the law," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "It is mind-boggling that the ACLU would oppose such a widely cherished idea simply because it is offended by the image in the painting." "The ideas expressed in this painting aren't specific to any one faith, and they certainly don't establish a single state religion," Johnson explained. "The reason Americans enjoy equal justice is because we are all 'created equal, endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights.' This painting is a clear reflection of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence." ... It's hard for me to see how such an ecumenical perspective can be read into a painting of Jesus holding a fragment from the New Testament (or, if the theory is that the text is irrelevant because next to no-one would understand it, we can just settle on this being a painting of Jesus with some undefined pronouncement), coupled with "To know peace, obey these laws," presumably referring to the laws expounded by Jesus. Thanks to Frank Bell for pointers to the story and to the icon. UPDATE: I should stress that this seems to be a standalone painting, and one that isn't just displayed as a work of art for art's sake — the "lettering beneath that says, 'To know peace, obey these laws'" suggests the court authorities are trying to send a normative message with the painting, not just to display a historically interesting or significant artifact.