Baxter County Judge Mickey Pendergrass will no longer allow a Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, saying Wednesday the county will not appeal a federal judge's recent decision that the scene violated the First Amendment.
In a prepared statement he read at the courthouse, Pendergrass said the county's risk management board -- which assesses costs of legal cases and insurance -- would not fund an appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks ruling.
"To protect the county from any further liability, we will abide by the court's ruling," Pendergrass read from the statement. "I will not risk this county or its purse to assume any loss that would be ours if we went to an appeal on our own and lost."
Brooks ruled Nov. 12 in U.S. District Court in Harrison that the Nativity scene violated the First Amendment prohibition on the establishment of religion.
Brooks ordered that Pendergrass either refrain from placing any religious display on the courthouse grounds or allow seasonal displays representing "persons of all faiths, as well as no faith at all."
The Nativity scene had been displayed on the grounds in Mountain Home for more than 40 years, the county judge said.
Pendergrass said only a lighted Christmas tree will remain.
He wouldn't comment further on his decision Wednesday and instead referred to his prepared comments, which were later posted on Baxter County's website.
Dessa Blackthorn, who owns Tattooz by Sassy in Mountain Home, filed a lawsuit against the county in partnership with the American Humanist Association -- a Washington, D.C.-based organization that defends civil liberties and secular governance -- after seeing the Nativity display in 2014.
Blackthorn said she knew of people who were denied the ability to hang a banner celebrating the winter solstice and displaying a Jewish menorah at the courthouse last year.
"We were just asking equal access to the property," Blackthorn said Wednesday. "I'm disappointed in [Pendergrass'] decision. No one can display anything now.
"But it may be better this way. No one is going to have hurt feelings now."
In his statement, Pendergrass said he was somewhat surprised by the lawsuit in light of three recent Baxter County slayings -- two who died in a deliberately set house fire and one person who was fatally struck while riding a bicycle.
"With what seems like the world is on fire, from terrorists' attacks, protests, etc., and the three horrible homicides and other crimes recently committed in our county, why [does] this lawsuit and discussion even have to take place?" he asked. "Over a holiday display that hurts no one.
"Why it has become such a large issue still baffles me, and the rhetoric it causes is beyond my comprehension. This was engineered by a very few folks, most of which live nowhere close to Baxter County."
Blackthorn said she didn't find the Nativity scene "offensive," but she filed the lawsuit because of the exclusion of others who had requested the ability to place displays at the courthouse.
"It pisses me off when they tell me if I'm offended, I don't have to look at it," Blackthorn said. "Nobody was offended. But people who weren't Christians who wanted to display something about the holiday were not allowed to.
"[Pendergrass] doesn't want to share."
At least two Mountain Home businesses on the courthouse square will display Nativity scenes in their windows.
Liz Gamelin, owner of Mountain Home Floral Co. on East Seventh Street, will place a scene in her window.
"The Nativity scene has been here for years," she said of the courthouse display. "I'm putting one in my window. Wherever you go, there's going to be someone who's not happy."
Nicole Goodman, an employee of Gregory Jewelers on East Sixth Street, said the store's owners hung three large window decals depicting the birth of Jesus on Tuesday in anticipation of Pendergrass' announcement.
"They said if you can't put it up at the courthouse, we'll have it here," she said.
State Desk on 11/26/2015