Ryan Sabalow

ryan.sabalow@indystar.com

A second secular organization is threatening to sue Indiana over a small, but very controversial, cross sculpture at Whitewater Memorial State Park in Liberty.

The Center for Inquiry, a Washington, D.C., and New York-based humanist group, says the 14-inch cross attached to a wooden veterans memorial statue at the park "denigrates the sacrifice" of non-Christian veterans.

"The state is sending a message to all veterans who do not subscribe to the Christian faith that their service is less valued," the group wrote Monday in a letter to Gov. Mike Pence and Cameron Clark, director of Indiana's Department of Natural Resources. "We are certain this is not your intent, and we look forward to discussing with you how this situation can be rectified. In the absence of such progress, however, we will be forced to consider all of our legal options."

The group said it might file a lawsuit, should the cross not be removed.

Pence said earlier this month that he supported the statue staying in the park.

"The freedom of religion does not require freedom from religion," Pence said in a statement.

Pence's remarks came after the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the DNR asking it to move the statue from the park. The Wisconsin-based atheist and agnostic group has said it too may take legal action.

The white-painted cross is at the bottom of an 8-foot-tall wooden chainsaw-carved statue. At the top of the statue is a bald eagle perched above lettering that says, "All gave some; Some gave all." On one side of the eagle's perch is an Indiana state flag; on the other side is a soldier.

The debate over the cross erupted earlier this summer when a Liberty man sent a letter to the DNR after he saw the statue on display at the park because he thought the cross amounted to a government-sponsored "religious shrine."

Veterans' groups and other residents donated money to pay for the carved memorial. No taxpayer funds were used for the carving, which was donated to the park.

The Liberty Institute released a statement Tuesday regarding the latest secular challenge to the woodcarving. It said the statement was made on behalf of its client, Dayle K. Lewis, the Richmond, Ind., sculptor who carved the piece.

Roger Byron, senior counsel of the group, said the white cross the depicts "a historically accurate grave marker symbolizing the burial site of a fallen soldier" and, as such, does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

"These relentless attacks on the nation's veterans memorials have to stop," Byron said in a statement. "The display of this incredible memorial in Whitewater Memorial State Park — which is itself a veterans memorial — clearly is lawful."

Call Star reporter Ryan Sabalow at (317) 444-6179. Follow him on Twitter: @ryansabalow.