SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A state government worker who alleges he was forced to remove Bible verses, a bumper sticker reading ``Marriage: One Man, One Woman'' and other religious or political items from the entrance of his office cubicle sued the California Department of Social Services Monday, claiming the action violated his First Amendment rights.
Enoch Lawrence, who works as a disability evaluation analyst in the Roseville office of DSS, said in his lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento that a supervisor told him the materials ran afoul of a two year-old department policy ``prohibiting sexual harassment and unprofessional conduct.''
Lawrence received permission to repost the items, but only if they couldn't be seen by anyone passing by his workspace, according to the lawsuit. He was told that if he put the materials up again in public view, he could be fired for ``willful disobedience and insubordination.''
The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian law firm that has successfully challenged the boundaries separating church from state, is representing Lawrence.
Joshua Carden, an Alliance Defense Fund attorney, said the department's directive was a clear infringement on his client's rights to free speech and freedom of religion because other employees in Lawrence's office were allowed to post religious and political materials in their cubicles.
``When you have a place where you allow people to put up personal expression, you don't get to pick and choose what you are going to allow and what you are going to not, especially when it's what religious speech you are going to allow or not,'' Carden said.
A spokesman for the Department of Social Services said the agency could not comment on the lawsuit because its lawyers had not received it as of late Monday.
Named as a defendant in Lawrence's lawsuit are DSS director Rita Saenz and two supervisors in the department's Roseville branch.
Carden said that among the items a supervisor removed from Lawrence's cubicle included a sign reading ``Jesus Spoken Here,'' an article entitled ``Stop Judicial Tyranny,'' and another article about former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from office for refusing a court order to move a Ten Commandments monument.
The lawsuit seeks to reinstate Lawrence's ability to decorate his cubicle as he chooses and to have the department's policy on workplace expression overturned, Carden said.
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