Judge Tosses ACLU Suit Over Indiana Nativity Scene

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Nativity scene on an Indiana county's courthouse lawn, which has been placed there by a private group for many years.

The lawsuit, filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana against Franklin County, accuses the county of violating the First Amendment by allowing a Christian symbol on public property, suggesting that the government favors one religion over another.

But that allegation no longer holds, federal district Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said in a ruling issued Wednesday, because a newly passed ordinance already allows Franklin County residents to erect their own displays — religious or not — outside the courthouse.

Officials enacted the ordinance about a month after the lawsuit was filed.

The ruling comes a little less than a year after the ACLU of Indiana sued Franklin County in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on behalf of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit, and two Franklin County residents who oppose the display of the Nativity scene.

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