Ten Commandments Will be Displayed in Wyoming Plaza

October 31, 2003

Source: The Associated Press

http://www.fac.org/rel_liberty/publiclife/news.aspx?id=12139

On October 31, 2003 The Associated Press reported that "the City Council decided yesterday to move a controversial Ten Commandments monument out of a park and into a plaza that will honor a variety of historic documents. The 5-4 vote followed a unanimous rejection of an offer by the Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan.,to place his own monument in the park. Phelps has been calling for a monument declaring that Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered in October, 1998, went to hell because of his sexual orientation... Phelps threatened to sue if the city did not comply with his demand. Meanwhile, the city was threatened last month with a lawsuit from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, of Madison, Wis., if it did not remove the Ten Commandments monument from City Park. The monument has been in the park since 1965, when it was donated to the city by the Fraternal Order of Eagles."