Prominent display sought for Ten Commandments

Do the Ten Commandments deserve more exposure in Kalispell? 

What about the Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and preambles to the U.S. and Montana constitutions?

Stone monuments for each of those documents for years stood near the front of the Flathead County Courthouse as part of a “cornerstone of law park.” 

Then the historic courthouse was renovated last year, and the monuments were moved to a little nook behind the building. 

Fred Bryant now is trying to get them moved to a more visible location: Kalispell’s Depot Park.

“People want to know where they are, why they were moved, and have been on my back for some reason,” Bryant said of the monuments. “In trying to find out, a lot of the Eagles and other people have said, ‘Let’s put them out there with the veterans monument in Depot Park and kill two birds with one stone.’”

Bryant said he’s a 38-year member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, which donated the Ten Commandments monument to Flathead County more than 50 years ago. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, similar Ten Commandments monuments were donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles to communities around the country for display in public places — an initiative that coincided with the release of the “Ten Commandments” movie, Bryant said.

For years, the Ten Commandments monument stood alone on the courthouse lawn in downtown Kalispell. Then a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, threatened to sue the county.

Bryant said he and others raised $12,000 in private donations to buy the other stone monuments. That transformed what arguably had been a religious display into a “legal history” one and got the group to drop its threat of a lawsuit.

Bryant has asked both the Flathead County commissioners and the Kalispell City Council to consider his request, and said some members of other groups such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars are supporting the initiative. 

He said he’d like to see the monuments moved before Nov. 11, which is Veterans Day. “My personal preference is the southwest corner [of Depot Park], about three feet from the sidewalk, facing in,” he said.

“At first blush, I think it’s an excellent idea,” County Commissioner Cal Scott said. 

“If the county will remit [the monuments] to the city and they are put up at the veterans memorial, I think that’d be a good fit. Sitting back here in the back corner doesn’t really do them or the community justice.”

At the Kalispell City Council’s meeting on Monday, council member Bob Hafferman asked for a work session on Bryant’s request. The session has yet to be scheduled.

“I think they’ve made a request and we should honor that and see what the rest of the council thinks about it,” Hafferman said. 

“For whatever reason, [the county] moved them from in front of the courthouse to someplace behind it. And apparently they believe this thing needs a little more exposure, and isn’t something we want to hide under a bushel basket.”

Hafferman said his only concern about moving the monuments to a more prominent location like Depot Park is vandalism.

Kalispell City Attorney Charlie Harball said he has no legal concern about moving the monuments to Depot Park, which is city property. But that’s going to be a decision for the both council members and the county commissioners to make.

“If they only wanted to move the Ten Commandments over, I would have a legal concern about that. But if the idea is to move everything, we could do that,” Harball said. “I think the political end of things in terms of religious documents on government ground was taken care of back when that was raised with the county.”

Bryant, while trying to get Kalispell and Flathead County to move formally on his request, also is trying to find people willing to help move the monuments if or when it comes to that. 

“What I need is somebody that’s 50 years younger than I am to help with the manual labor,” he said.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.