Statue update planned Monday afternoon

Rep. Denny Rehberg will hold a meeting Monday in Whitefish Monday to provide an update on legal proceedings surrounding the Jesus statue on Big Mountain.

Scheduled to attend are Rep. Randy Forbes, chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, and Cece Heil, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, which is fighting litigation aimed at removing the statue from Flathead National Forest lands on the mountain.

The local chapter of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, has maintained the statue for nearly 60 years on a small plot of national forest land that is part of the Whitefish Mountain Resort just above Chair 2.

A Wisconsin-based group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, sued earlier this year to have the statue removed, contending that it is an unconstitutional conflict between the separation of church and state.

Rehberg, the Knights of Columbus and others maintain that the  statue is a veterans memorial with historic significance on the Big Mountain.

“This incredible piece of history has always meant a lot to the local community in Whitefish, but now it’s become an important source of patriotism for the rest of the country,” Rehberg said in a press release.

“It’s not uncommon for folks I talk to who don’t necessarily live in Montana to know what’s going on at Big Mountain. We get a lot of support from across this country, and that’s the way it ought to be. I hope folks will come out and show how much this fight means to us.”

U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen is presiding over the case in Missoula. After recent court proceedings, a trial has been scheduled to start in March 2013, with discovery to begin this November and motions to get under way in January.

While the Flathead National Forest is the defendant, the Knights of Columbus and the American Center for Law and Justice have intervened in the case.

Monday’s meeting in Whitefish will be at 3 p.m. at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post on Baker Avenue.