MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The nativity scene at Green Bay City Hall will come down this week but the controversy it created won't go away anytime soon.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison-based group that advocates for the separation of church and state, and several residents moved to file a lawsuit on Monday challenging the display on the roof of a City Hall entrance.

The lawsuit claims the display depicting the birth of Jesus is an unconstitutional governmental endorsement of religion. It claims City Council President Chad Fradette and Mayor Jim Schmitt allowed the display to provoke and marginalize those who would object.

The lawsuit is the latest twist in a controversy that started two weeks ago when Fradette put up the display and has turned alternately divisive and circuslike.

After the city allowed Fradette to install the scene, Schmitt said he had to grant requests for other religious displays. Among those installed was a wreath containing a pentacle, a five-pointed star that is an important symbol for the Wicca religion. The wreath was later removed by vandals.

A suburban resident sarcastically asked the city to install a pole symbolizing Festivus, a holiday popularized in an episode of TV's "Seinfeld" show. Another resident asked for a symbol honoring the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster."

Schmitt imposed a moratorium on religious symbols. Meanwhile, a divisive debate was shaping up over whether the city should sponsor the nativity scene. In the end, the city council voted last week to keep the display but put all other requests on hold until it can draw up guidelines for deciding them.

The lawsuit by the Madison-based foundation, the nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics, calls that policy unconstitutional. A lawyer for the foundation mailed the lawsuit to U.S. District Court on Monday. Since the court is closed, it will not technically be filed until Wednesday.

Twelve local residents opposed to the display are joining the suit. They include a Unitarian Universalist, an agnostic and a devout Buddhist who wants permission to put up his own religious symbol. Some of the residents say they are avoiding City Hall as long as the display is up.

"Many Green Bay citizens contacted us over their dismay that city government would thumb its nose at the constitutional principle of state-church separation, and deliberately provoke a divisive controversy in Green Bay," said foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

The lawsuit will go on even after the display comes down on Wednesday. Among other things, it asks a federal judge to declare the city's actions a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

In a letter to Green Bay citizens, Schmitt acknowledged mistakes in the process of approving the nativity scene but said he believed the city was on solid legal footing. And then he blamed the foundation for seeking to divide the community with the lawsuit.

"FFRF aspires to a world free of religious belief," he wrote. "I believe those intentions threaten a vital part of the goodness of humanity and what makes this city great."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)