Quincy News: ACLU Takes On Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch For Illegally Using Public Funds On Religious Statues

— Quincy Massachusetts News by Quincy Quarry News – News, Opinion and Commentary

Lady Justice plays no favorite
Image via Your Fine Sculpture

As could only be reasonably expected, the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (“AC:U”) has stepped up to the plate to challenge Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch’s use of public funds to install outsized bas relief statues of Michael the Archangel and Saint Florian, the Roman Catholic patron saints for police and firefighters respectively, on Quincy’s impending new public safety building.

With the statues would clearly appear to be unarguably at odds with the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution as well as all manner of case law, the ACLU went oh so ironically simple with its opening shot across the bow, if not amidship for a kill shot.

Religious art
A City of Quincy image

The ACLU asserts with ample good reasons that religious statues slated to be installed on the City of Quincy’s impending new new public safety headquarters are “a very straightforward violation of our state constitution.”

In turn, ACLU Freedom of Expression Attorney Rachel Davidson said that Article 2 in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights that sets the basis for Massachusetts General Law does not permit governments to erect displays “clearly and primarily religious in nature.”

Most especially by extension as regards the proscribed use of taxpayers’ money for such religious displays.

The 10-foot bronze statues will cost a combined $850,000, according to Chris Walker, chief of staph to Mayor Thomas Koch.

In response, Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch, a self-proclaimed practicing Roman Catholic, asserted the statues of Roman Catholic saints do not convey a religious message but symbolize the universal concept of “good versus evil.”

Needless, to say, such a view does neither passes the common sense “The Looks Like A Duck” test nor the so-called “Lemon Test” relied upon in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and which come into being via 1971 the Supreme Court decision in the matter of Lemon vs. Kurtzman.

In short, case law for this lemon law test asks the following:

Do the statues serve a primarily secular purpose?
Do the statues advance or inhibit religion?
Do the statues show excessive entanglement between government and religion?

A politician striking out
Image via nj.com

Needless to say, Mayor Koch’s plans for installing this statues can only properly seen as going 0 for 3 for the out per the Lemon Test.

And for a local angle, Article 2 in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights as well as the Declaration itself was penned in 1780 by Quincy native John Adams.

The Declaration of Rights also sets he basis for the United States Constitution and most especially as regards the constitution’s Establishment Clause.

In turn, what with Mayor Koch’s obsession with Quincy 400 he should have learned about John Adams’ authorship of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights; at the same time, he does have a history of viewing rules as more guidelines than actual rules.

Regardless, 2025 continues to be a rough year for Quincy’s peerless major.

QQ disclaimer

Quincy News on Instagram: