Church Not Allowed To Hang Gay Marriage Banner

QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS - A plan to drape a large banner supporting same-sex marriage from the facade of the city’s historic Church of the Presidents has lost a crucial regulatory battle at city hall.
The Quincy Historical District Commission, which raised objections about the banner’s size and proposed location streamed across perhaps the city’s most important landmark, shot down a request by the United First Parish Church to hang a 34-foot-by-4-foot sign reading ‘‘People of Faith for Marriage Equality’’ in front of the church.
Commission members were careful to frame their concerns about the banner to its technical dimensions and its possible aesthetic impact on the church, which is home to the crypts of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and their wives. With the city’s chief lawyer keeping a close eye over the meeting last night, there was no discussion about the banner’s message and its highly volatile political content.
‘‘I don’t have a problem with a sign, it’s this sign I have a problem with,’’ said Maralin Manning, a commission member and executive director of the Quincy Business Association. ‘‘This sign, as it is right now, I don’t think is appropriate for the building.’’
The commission voted 3-2 against a 30-day permit to hang the sign, which itself was something of a compromise measure from the church’s original request for a 90-day permit. The commission passed a second resolution suggesting that it would consider allowing a redesigned banner that is ‘‘not as intrusive’’ to the architecture of the 1828 building.
The historical commission was only the first stop for United First Parish, which will now take its case to hang the banner to the city’s zoning board of appeals. The banner needs a variance from the city’s zoning code because its proposed size is larger than what would regularly be allowed.
If the zoning board grants a variance, the church, a Unitarian-Universalist parish, could submit another application to the historical district commission. The church could also take the matter to court.
‘‘I can’t comment right now; we need to discuss this with the entire congregation,’’ the Rev. Sheldon Bennett, the church’s pastor, said after the meeting last night at city hall.
The zoning board will look at how the banner technically fits into the city’s legal language guiding temporary signs, and whether it deserves a variance. The historic commission, however, has a more subjective authority over anything that hangs from buildings in the city’s historic district, which includes much of downtown Quincy.
Historic commission members said the banner might take away from the architectural significance of the church’s facade, which member Edward Fitzgerald said is recognized as one of the most important of its kind in the country.
Fitzgerald, who is director of the city’s historical society, was willing to give the church a 30-day permit, but added that he would have reservations that a longer permit could be a ‘‘serious detriment to the integrity’’ of the building.
Other commission members offered a number of alternative ideas, such as hanging a banner horizontally between the church’s columns or erecting a sign not attached to the building. Commission member Anthony Ricci, an architect, suggested hanging the banner in the portico of the church, a spot that could be easily seen from the street but wouldn’t be hanging from the church’s columns.
‘‘I just think that a vinyl banner like this creates a circus atmosphere that’s not a good fit for a building with as much historic magnitude,’’ said park commissioner Thomas Koch, who is a historic district commission member.
Koch, Manning and commission member Rose McCarthy voted against allowing the 30-day permit. Ricci and Fitzgerald voted in support.
The Rev. Bennett and several congregation members described the banner as an effort to affirm a core principle of the church’s religious beliefs and to ‘‘invite people into the church.’’
The chairman of the city’s human rights commission favored the banner.
Paul Wilczynski, one of nine parishioners at the meeting, said, ‘‘I’d hate to leave this room tonight feeling that our ability to send a faith-based message will be impeded by the fact that we’re in a historic building.’’
from The Patriot Ledger