BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — For more than 30 years, an artist’s rendering of Jesus hung in West Virginia’s Bridgeport High School without much of a fuss, but now Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the West Virginia American Civil Liberties Union are suing to have it removed.
“This is a devotional artwork,” Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said June 29 on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.”
“That is to say it was intended to take believers and to impress people who may not be believers into an acceptance of Jesus as the Christ.” Lynn added that he fears any child who walks by the painting might feel pressured into becoming a Christian because the child may assume his principal says Christianity is the religion each student ought to practice.
The local school board considered whether to remove the painting, but a vote resulted in a tie in June, according to The Associated Press. The two civil-liberties groups filed the lawsuit June 28 on behalf of two parents who have had or will have children at the school.
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