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October 8, 1999/28 Tishri 5760, Vol. 52, No.6
ACLU mulls appeal of ruling
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
The Arizona Civil Liberties Union will decide next week whether it will appeal a ruling by U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver in which she refused to rescind Gilbert Mayor Cynthia Dunham's Bible Week proclamation of 1997 and/or prevent any future such proclamations.
Silver issued the ruling Friday, Oct. 1., deciding that the three Gilbert residents who joined the ACLU in its lawsuit were not injured by the proclamation and the town did not spend taxpayer money "solely" to issue the proclamation, and therefore no one had standing to bring the suit. Silver's ruling did not touch upon the constitutional questions raised regarding Bible Week and the separation of church and state.
Eleanor Eisenberg, ACLU executive director, complained that the ruling "leaves a situation where if a government does something unconstitutional, then taxpayers or people suffering mental anguish can't turn to the courts for relief."
The lawsuit claimed the annual proclamation, which designated Nov. 23-30, 1997, as Bible Week in Gilbert, was unconstitutional. The proclamation urged Gilbert residents to observe the Laymen's National Bible Association-sponsored National Bible Week and to read the Bible.
"The violation of a fundamental right is itself an injury, and there's case law to support this," Eisenberg said. Eisenberg said she would meet early next week with lawyers who handled the challenge to decide what to do next.
Dunham said she was pleased with the ruling and she would issue another Bible Week proclamation this November, though with some changes.
"I think I will add a line that acknowledges that Gilbert is becoming a more diverse community and there are other works that are of cultural value," Dunham said. "I don't know that I want to ... refer to specific works."
Dunham said that she believes "there is a huge misunderstanding as to what the (Bible Week) proclamation was and what it actually said."
Gilbert resident Ellen Sklar, a plaintiff in the suit along with her husband, Ellis, insisted that she was hurt by the proclamation, as was her husband. Both are Holocaust survivors.
Sklar said she fears that she and her husband, who have lived in Gilbert for four years, will again begin receiving hate mail and phone calls, as they did after they initially challenged the proclamation. They hadn't received any as of early this week, but "it will come, it always does," she said.
Sklar bemoaned that she and her husband had received little more than token support from the Valley's Jewish community.
"From what I hear, there are 100,000 Jews living in (the Phoenix) area," Sklar said. "I would just like to see 50 of them come out from under their rock."
Sklar said that, except for a letter from Rabbi Barton Lee, executive director of the Hillel Jewish Student Center at Arizona State University, "the Jewish community kept silent, and that is the worst habit that we have as a people. (Jews think that ) if they don't know we are here, maybe they will forget about us. But guess what? We are here and we better make ourselves known. We will not run away, and we will not hide our heads in the sand, and we will not crawl under a rock. At least I hope that will happen."
Sklar said the couple, both 65 and members of Chabad of the East Valley, want to move out of Gilbert, but they're not sure where or when.
"I think God made Arizona just for me because it is so beautiful," Sklar said. "I really love it; but you ask me where? I don't know. I just don't want to be reminded of (Dunham). I don't like her."
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