Mitch Kahle, an activist with a history of pressing for church-state separation, recently moved from Hawaii to Michigan where he began a campaign to get the city of Grand Haven to remove a cross that has been at the top of a city hill for over 50 years. The Washington Free Beacon reports that, under threat of a lawsuit, the Grand Haven city council voted 3-2 earlier this week to have the cross removed from Dewey Hill. Grand Haven resident and blogger Brandon Hall called Kahle "a bully... an atheist extremist who targets Christians and gives atheists a bad name." Hall said he has taken out papers to force a recall vote on Councilman Bob Monetza who supported removal of the Dewey Hill Cross. Monetza explained his vote, saying that the alternative was "the prospect of a grotesque circus of rotating and competing displays and messages... until Dewey Hill stops being a beautiful backdrop to our downtown and becomes a hideous billboard."
The Grand Haven Tribune reports that Kahle also recently convinced Grand Haven schools to end the practice of permitting a Christian pastor to be present in hallways during lunch periods "enticing children with candy to join him in prayer and other religious activities." The pastor's activities will be moved outside of regular school hours.
