A federal judge threw out a Pembroke church’s complaint Friday that it was unfairly denied approval to build an electronic roadside sign to display Christian messages.
The judge issued a rejection of the church’s accusations that it was discriminated against, saying that it actually sought “a right to be treated differently from all other private landowners.”
The nonprofit Signs for Jesus, which sued the town along with the Hillside Baptist Church, said it’s contemplating an appeal, which would prolong the 15-month legal dispute.
The 547 Pembroke St. church is located in an area where the town broadly prohibits electronic signs for aesthetic reasons.
When the townspeople and zoning board members rejected the church’s bid for an exception in October 2015, the church leapfrogged the superior court appeals process and sued in federal court. It alleged that the town’s ordinance is unconstitutional and was applied illegally because comparable nonreligious entities were allowed to have electronic signs.
But in a 40-page ruling Friday, a federal judge at the U.S. District Court in Concord issued a summary judgment in favor of the town. Judge Paul Barbadoro wrote that Pembroke’s decision “had nothing to do with either religion or the content of the Church’s speech.”
Barbadoro said the town is justified in enforcing an ordinance that seeks to maintain the semi-rural character of Pembroke Street, in this case by prohibiting electronic signs. The two electronic signs that exist along that road aren’t comparable to the church’s proposal, the judge said, because one pre-dates the ordinance and the other was installed by the school district, which is exempt from local zoning approval.
The judge concluded: “The Church’s contention that it should be free from the effect of the Town’s electronic sign ordinance amounts to a demand, not for a level playing field, but instead for a right to be treated differently from all other private landowners.”
The town’s attorney, Christopher Cole of the Concord-based firm Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green, said the decision was “thorough, thoughtful and correct.”
“The Town is very happy that its desire to maintain the aesthetic integrity of Pembroke Street will be able to continue,” he wrote in an email Tuesday.
The church’s attorney, however, said he disagreed. Michael Tierney of the Manchester-based firm Wadleigh, Starr & Peters wrote in an email Tuesday that he and his clients were “currently analyzing our appeal options.”
“The Pembroke Sign Ordinance is unconstitutional and just as the church in Reed v. Gilbert had to appeal to the circuit court of appeals and then to the United States Supreme Court, it may take us longer than originally anticipated to vindicate my clients’ rights,” Tierney wrote, referencing an Arizona case from 2015 that dealt with content-based sign restrictions.
Signs for Jesus is already established in the area. It operates a sign on Route 202 in Chichester that is similar to the one it requested in Pembroke.
The proposed 4-foot-by-8-foot electronic sign in Pembroke would use red font to deliver Bible messages, such as, “A merry heart does good like medicine.”
Tierney himself was known to Pembroke’s zoning board before this case began. In a separate religious case in 2015, he successfully argued against the same board on behalf of Next Level Church.
Under threat of a lawsuit, the board reversed course on an earlier decision and allowed a new church to move into a prohibited zone.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)