Los Angeles, Calif., Jul 8, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Mel Gibson is reportedly planning to spend more than $140,000 to keep a cross on a government seal in Los Angeles.
According to sources close to Icon Films, the Hollywood actor-director will actively take part in a campaign, which was begun a religious group to protest against the removal of the cross on the official Los Angeles county seal.
According to The Herald Sun, Gibson expressed his disappointment over the proposed scrapping of the cross because of legal threats from civil rights groups.
On June 1, LA County supervisors caved in to a demand made by the ACLU, which threatened to sue the county if it did not remove the cross. As a result, the county decided to remove the cross.
But the Thomas More Law Center, a national, public-interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed a lawsuit in federal district court in California, seeking to prevent county officials from removing the cross from the county's official seal.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Ernesto Vasquez, a county employee, who objects to the removal of the cross because it sends a government-sponsored message of hostility towards Christians in violation of the United States Constitution.
The specific use of Gibson's donation has not been specified, but it will be used to support the campaign against ACLU's effort to remove the cross from the county seal.