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Woman sues suburb over vehicle sticker bearing cross
Has image of soldier with rifle, kneeling in front of gravesite with marker

A resident is suing the Chicago suburb of Burbank, alleging that the city's new vehicle sticker violates her constitutional rights.

The sticker bears the image of a soldier with a rifle, kneeling in front of a gravesite that bears a cross.

City officials say the cross is a generic symbol and wasn't picked for any religious reasons.

 But resident Nichole Schultz disagrees, according to her attorney, and she says the sticker has resulted in the "forced Christianization" of her car.

Her lawsuit filed in federal court this week seeks an exemption from having to display the sticker.

City Clerk Pat Roach, who is named in the suit, said yesterday that Schultz can cover up or remove the part of the sticker with the cross.

Schultz's supporters say she was never offered that option before.

Yet if a worker objects to driving a bus with a homosexual advertisement on it then it is 'condoning intolerance' instead of forced homosexual indoctrination.

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Transit company won't accommodate religious objection
Letting worker not drive bus with 'gay'-themed ad called 'condoning intolerance'

Metro Transit said Friday that it inadvertently sent the wrong message about tolerance in trying to accommodate a bus driver's religious objections to driving buses that carried gay-themed ads.

Metro Transit spokesman Bob Gibbons said the company made a temporary accommodation to the driver on Oct. 12, allowing her not drive buses that carried an ad for Lavender, a local magazine aimed at the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community.

The ad showed the face of a young man with the slogan, "Unleash Your Inner Gay." Fifty buses carried it periodically.

The ad contract ran only through Oct. 18, Gibbons said, and buses no longer are carrying the ads.

However, in reviewing the issue, Gibbons said the company likely would not make the same decision again.

"We are not persuaded that advertising, per se, infringes on religious practices and would be reluctant to make similar accommodations in the future," Gibbons said.

The woman is still driving for Metro Transit, he added.

Metro Transit had come under fire from a union leader and some other drivers, who said the company was condoning intolerance.

"We deeply regret any impressions of intolerance," Gibbons said in a written statement. "Metro Transit employs and serves a diverse population, and we do our best to be respectful of all views."

The bus controversy followed news of many Muslim taxi drivers serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport refusing to accept passengers carrying alcohol and some pharmacists across the country insisting on the right to refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions.