After winning a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that two suburbs must remove religious symbols from their municipal seals, an atheist group is now pressing Arlington Heights to take down its signs directing motorists to area churches. The group launched its latest effort at Monday evening`s Village Board meeting, where Rob Sherman, national spokesman for the American Atheists Inc., told trustees that the blue street signs violate two Illinois constitutional provisions separating government and religion. The signs are erected by the village, but the churches are billed for the cost.
And as he did in the cases involving the Rolling Meadows and Zion seals, Sherman warned Monday that the group intends to sue Arlington Heights if it, too, rejects his request.
”Our purpose of being here tonight is to ask the Village Board to review the constitutionality of continuance of this practice. We feel this is the government directing people to religion,” Sherman said at the meeting.
Village President William Maki said that in his 15 years with the village, he had ”never heard an expression similar to this in any way, shape, or form.”
Village officials indicated privately that they probably would not act on the request, even though Sherman says he will wait only two months before filing a federal or state lawsuit.
”I don`t anticipate the board will take any action. If (Sherman) feels his only recourse is to litigate the matter, obviously that recourse is available to him,” Maki said in an interview before the meeting.
Furthermore, Maki denied that the signs promote religion.
But Carol Liebert, an atheist and Arlington Heights resident on whose behalf Sherman complained, says she is offended every time she drives past two signs for a Lutheran church posted on her street.
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”I don`t understand why (the churches) are the one business that is allowed to advertise on our guideposts,” Liebert said.
Nobody in the village seems to know how many church signs, usually erected above the street name, there are in Arlington Heights. The signs, public works officials said, are posted to direct motorists to hard-to-find churches.
Sherman contends that the signs violate two sections of the state`s constitution-one prohibiting government bodies from requiring a citizen to
”support any ministry or place of worship against his consent” and another forbidding municipalities from donating land, money or property ”to any church or for any sectarian purpose.”
Leaders at several Arlington Heights churches, in phone interviews, expressed a range of opinions about Sherman`s campaign, some even backing it. ”I would tend to support his move rather than saying it`s awful,” said Rev. Dori Baker, an associate pastor at First Methodist Church of Arlington Heights on Euclid Avenue, which has a blue street sign.
”I don`t think the signs endorse religion, but I can see his point,”
she said.