Suit Pans Director’s Publicity Stunt

It was more than four decades ago when the Ten Commandments were handed down here, not by God or Moses, but by one enterprising Hollywood director named Cecil B. De Mille .

He was promoting a movie, of course.

The Ten Commandments monument donated to this city by De Mille and company is at the center of a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Seattle. The suit is like numerous other attempts around the country to rid public places of religious symbols. What makes this case different is that its origin traces back to a publicity stunt.

An Everett resident, Jesse Card, backed by a Washington, D.C., group advocating separation of church and state, wants a federal judge to order the removal of the monument. It stands just outside the old City Hall -- now the police station -- and has been there for 43 years.

The granite monument looms about six feet tall in a narrow bed of flowers and bushes. The inscribed commandments, with all the usual “thou shalts,” are partly obscured by overgrown shrubbery. The monument’s easy to miss.

But Card, 20, who lives only two blocks away, says he cannot help but see it. He refuses media interviews, preferring to let the lawsuit and his backer, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, speak for him.

“Mr. Card is offended by the Ten Commandments display in front of the old City Hall because it conveys a message of state endorsement of religion in general, and a specific religious viewpoint in particular,” the suit says.

“Because of his aversion to this sectarian religious display,” the suit continues, “Mr. Card tries to avoid seeing the monument whenever possible, but he often must travel by it.”

Card is suing the city and seeking $1 in damages.

“This isn’t about money,” said Robert Boston, spokesman for Americans United. Boston said there’s been a surge of religious symbols placed in public places since Sept. 11, 2001. Partly in response to that, he said, there’s been a counter-surge of protests.

Everett City Atty. Mark Soine said the city plans to fight the lawsuit, claiming the monument isn’t meant to promote religion, and is part of a historical site. Soine predicts the legal battle will probably take years.

The case mirrors those going on in other states -- in Arizona, Maryland, Kentucky and Ohio -- over the presentation of the Ten Commandments in public places. A federal court recently ordered the removal of a 2.5-ton granite monolith of the commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building.

Everett, which began as a lumber town, is now best known as the place where Boeing’s jumbo jets are assembled. About 95,000 people live here, just 27 miles up the road from Seattle. Civic organizations, such as the Fraternal Order of Eagles, once played a major role in city matters, which is how De Mille ties into the story.

According to court documents, and corroborated by Everett city officials, De Mille, while working on his last movie, “The Ten Commandments,” in the mid-1950s, teamed up with the head of the national Fraternal Order of Eagles to distribute more than 2,000 Ten Commandments replicas around the country.

“De Mille carefully exploited the situation to ensure maximum publicity for his movie,” one document says.

Actor Charlton Heston, who played Moses in the movie, appeared in Dunseith, N.D., for an unveiling. In Milwaukee, a Ten Commandments monument was presented the same week the film debuted, with actor Yul Brynner, who played the villainous Pharaoh, on hand for the festivities.

The project continued long after the film’s 1956 debut.

The Everett Aerie of the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the granite Ten Commandments to the city on Oct. 30, 1959, the same year De Mille died.

“It’s an interesting spin,” said City Atty. Soine. “Cecil got behind this to promote his film. From one perspective, promoting a Hollywood film is about as far as you can get from promoting religion.”