U-T San Diego reported last week that California's Attorney General has issued an Opinion (March 7, 2012) (
full text) concluding that it would violate the "No Preference" clause (
Art. 1, Sec. 4) of the California Constitution for the California Department of Parks and Recreation to permit the city of Encinitas to install the "Surfing Madonna" mosaic on state property at Moonlight State Beach. According to an
AP article last year, which carries a photo of the glass mosaic, the mosaic was placed under a train bridge in Encinitas. However technically it was graffiti. When Encinitas began steps to remove the mosaic, its creator, Mark Patterson, identified himself and reached an agreement with the city to remove the mosaic so it could be installed elsewhere. This is descried in a
California Catholic Daily article of Feb. 12. In a comment that Patterson posted online to this California Catholic Daily article, he described his inspiration for creating it. The content of the post became important to the Attorney General's ruling.
The Attorney General said in part:
... Mr. Patterson's attorney has asserted that the mosaic has a purely secular message ("Save the Ocean") and that Mr. Patterson was using the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a means of conveying that message. However, this assertion is inconsistent with Mr. Patterson's own description of how he came to adopt the image as a part of his mosaic. In the quotation above from the comment he posted on California Catholic Daily, he states that the Virgin "appeared" to him on several occasions. Her message to him was to save the oceans....
Because the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is central to the mosaic, an objective observer would conclude that Parks wished to convey a message related to that potent symbol of Catholicism. And even if the message is one of saving the oceans, it is the Virgin who is stating the message
