After a complaint from one atheist, an Ohio city removed the Nativity and Ten Commandments displays from public property.
The complaint was sent to the mayor of Dover, Ohio.
Mayor Richard Homrighausen told Fox 8 that the atheist group, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, threatened a lawsuit if city officials did not comply and move the Christian displays onto private, instead of public, property.
Homrighausen told the station, “We have freedom of religion and they’re saying that we’re endorsing one religion,”
FFRF had warned in its letter earlier this year that at least one resident complained against Christian displays that stood in public space in the city.
“Twenty-seven years i’ve been mayor, nothing like this has ever happened,” said the mayor. “Never imagined it would happen.”
The Grand Haven Tribune reported that both the Nativity scene and the Ten Commandments monuments have been moved not far from where they originally stood, to property owned by Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Law Director Douglas O’Meara pushed back against the complaint but noted that a court case would be costly for the city.
He said, “In these days of extremely tight budgets and close watching of civic purse strings, council and the mayor elected the route that extinguished that exposure.”
State Senator Jason Rapert, who sponsored the legislation allowing for the monument, called FFRF and the American Humanist Association “anti-American organizations” for their lawsuit.