“That atheist organization’s letter said it had received a complaint from one Macomb County resident,” said Satawa, 76, a Catholic and member of St. Sylvester Parish.
But such a letter is often all it takes for a local government body to capitulate, rather than face a possible lawsuit from the foundation.
“I’m upset that municipalities are just lying down in response to complaints from just one person,” Satawa said.
The story made headlines locally and was reported on national television by Fox News.
“I started getting supportive phone calls from around the United States,” Satawa said. “The first one I got was from a Jewish fellow down in Texas. One guy who called me told me he was a Hindu.”
With the help of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Satawa brought a lawsuit against the road commission in federal district court in Detroit for infringement of his constitutionally protected First Amendment rights.
Attorney Robert Muise was assigned the case, and kept pursuing it after he left Thomas More to start the American Freedom Law Center.
The U.S. district judge ruled against Satawa, but in August a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati unanimously overturned the decision, finding that the road commission’s action had violated Satawa’s First Amendment constitutional right to free speech and his right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
In consequence, Satawa has received a permit to put up the Nativity from Dec. 15-29 in the median, which is near St. Anne Parish in Warren.
Muise’s firm is involved in several other cases that he described as “pushing back” against efforts to “remove religion from the public square and the public lexicon.”
As it turned out, despite the wait, it was better for Satawa’s victory to come from the appeals court than if he had won in federal district court, because it sets an important precedent,” Muise said.
“Because it came at the appellate level, it’s binding in the Sixth Judicial Circuit (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee), and can be cited as persuasive in courts throughout the country.
The decision will not apply to all disputes over manger scenes on public property, however. The court said Satawa’s case involved private speech on public property — not government speech — so the decision still would not help a dispute over a city-sponsored crèche.
But then, many of the infringements on rights to religious expression do involve private speech on public property, as in many school-related cases.
The atheist group that challenged Satawa’s Nativity scene isn’t going away quietly, however. Annie Laurie Gaylor, the foundation’s co-president, told the Detroit Free Press her group planned to place a competing display near Satawa’s crèche, including a banner disavowing religion as a “superstition.” It has not yet been issued a permit for the display from the Roads Department.
Still, in putting up the crèche in a prominent spot each year, Satawa is maintaining the tradition begun by his late father, Joseph Satawa, back in 1945.
“I hope I can keep doing it for another 20 or 30 years,” he said.
