DEARBORN, MI — City officials in Dearborn were shocked and appalled this week after a local resident made the radical, unhinged demand that public funds used to decorate municipal streets for religious holidays be distributed with actual equal treatment.
Margot Cleveland, a journalist with The Federalist, filed a civil rights lawsuit alongside the American Freedom Law Center against the city and Democratic Muslim Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. The suit alleges the city violated her constitutional rights by dropping thousands in taxpayer money on massive public holiday installations while completely ignoring repeated requests to extend the same courtesy to Easter and Passover.
| "How dare you" |
"The City of Dearborn spent taxpayer money to light up its streets and parks for Ramadan while stonewalling a resident who simply asked that Easter, Passover, and other Christian and Jewish holy days be treated the same way," said Robert J. Muise, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel. "That is a straightforward Establishment Clause violation, and the retaliation our client faced for speaking up about it only compounds the constitutional harm."
Legal counsel for Cleveland highlighted a previous City Council meeting where Mayor Hammoud modeled the administration's commitment to community dialogue during a warm, inclusive chat with local Christian pastor Ted Barham.
| Pastor Barham |
"And although you live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here," Hammoud told the Christian pastor during the public session. "And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city… because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence."
| Abdullah Hammoud |
Dearborn leaders defended the city's festive spending habits—which included $1,500 on holiday banners, $5,000 on a giant crescent moon, custom streetlight installations, and official Dearborn Police Department holiday merch—as standard municipal operations.
"What makes this case especially troubling is that City officials, up to and including the Mayor, responded to a citizen’s respectful request for equal treatment with silence, stonewalling, and outright hostility — including the Mayor’s own words telling a Christian resident he is ‘not welcome’ in his own city," noted David Yerushalmi, an attorney on the case. "Our client is simply asking the City to treat Christians and Jews as equal citizens."
| Dearbornisthan |
Cleveland maintained that she wasn't asking for the city to tear down its decorations, but rather to extend the spirit of municipal hospitality across all major faiths.
"I much prefer to ensure equality of faith traditions, as opposed to a challenge to the display," Cleveland wrote in an email to city officials.
When asked for comment, city administrators reportedly reiterated that true diversity means celebrating everyone, provided everyone consists exclusively of the group currently holding city hall's credit card.