Yesterday, a federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana awarded the American Civil Liberties Union $42,000 in attorneys' fees in a case they brought challenging the legality of a picture of Jesus Christ that was displayed at the Slidell City Courthouse.
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The picture depicted Jesus presenting a book, and had written in large gold letters, "To Know Peace, Obey These Laws." The ACLU asked Slidell officials to remove the image, and brought suit only because that request was denied.

"We never wanted to bring this case," said Marjorie R. Esman, Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana. "We asked the city to remove the picture, but it refused. Slidell violated such a clear Constitutional principle that we felt we had no choice."

My previous posts on Slidell's theocrat judge and his codependent politician enablers here and here. It's unfortunate that judges and politicians have essentially unlimited immunity when they so insolently violate the Constitution (cf., this classic piece of statecraft).

On a related note, the saddest part is that it will of course not be the theocrats who pay the $42,000 bill:

"It's too bad that the residents of Slidell now have to pay for what should have been resolved without litigation," said Esman. "We hope that in the future it won't be necessary for taxpayers to foot the bill for their government's violations of clear legal principles."

File that under: "To know peace, obey these laws…"

Microbiologist: I have published a paper documenting evidence of evolution in E. coli bacteria.

Creationist: I demand to see your data!

Microbiologist: Have you read the paper?

Creationist: Since you refuse to disclose your data, I am going to denounce you as an unethical fraud on Conservapedia!

The data were, of course, in the paper (and the evolved bacteria are, of course, still in the microbiologist's lab).

"Teach the controversy" indeed…

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Long version here, or here, or here.