First Amendment Fight in McFarland, Kansas

If you were to ask someone what the First Amendment protects, they would likely say that it protects free speech. This paints only a partial picture of what the First Amendment protects. The founding fathers did enshrine the protections of free speech within the First Amendment, but their initial concern was people’s right to freely exercise their religious beliefs. That is why when they wrote the First Amendment it does not begin with protecting speech; instead, it begins with protecting freedom of religion. The First Amendment begins, “[c]ongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This statement is known as the Establishment Clause.

We found a recent example of how the First Amendment might apply in McFarland, Kansas, when the city recently updated the appearance of a baseball scoreboard in their public field.  When the city updated the scoreboard, an image of a Christian cross superimposed over an American flag was added to its appearance.

Given that scoreboard was on public land and would require the use of public funds, a Christian cross on the scoreboard gave the impression that the city of McFarland had established Christianity as the official religion of the city. This impression was shared by at least one member of the community who reached out to us, in hopes that we would address this issue with the city about this violation of the First Amendment. After having learned of the constitutional concerns of the new update to the scoreboard with the cross, the city removed the image.

After the removal of the image, some McFarland citizens have begun selling and erecting signs that bear the same image that was removed from the scoreboard. They place these signs in front of their homes or in front of their businesses. Those citizens are well within their rights to place images supporting their faith on their private property.

The ability to freely exercise religion is one of the great things about our country. While a private citizen expressing their beliefs on private land is appropriate, it is a violation of the First Amendment for the city to express the ideas of one set of religious beliefs on public land. The city of McFarland observed their obligations under the Constitution by taking the image down from the scoreboard, and the people of McFarland are exercising their constitutional rights by raising these images up on their private lands.

This blog was written by Christopher Rogers, who was a summer 2025 legal fellow for the ACLU of Kansas.