The following comes from a May 31 release from the American Humanists.
The American Humanist Association filed suit in federal court today against the city of Lake Elsinore, California, to stop it from funding the construction and display on public property of a monument depicting a soldier kneeling in prayer before a Christian cross. The city approved the design and funding of the cross monument in November of last year but has yet to complete its installation at the city-owned baseball stadium.
The group’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center sent a letter at that time to the city council explaining that cross monument would violate the separation of church and state required by the Constitution, but no reply was received.
The city approved the design and allocated approximately $50,000 of city funds for construction and installation. “The city has clearly violated the First Amendment by unnecessarily choosing a divisively religious means of honoring our veterans,” said William Burgess, an attorney with the Appignani Humanist Legal Center.
For original version of the story, click here.
Humanists (athiests) just want to change History. Next they will want all the crosses removed from Military cemeteries.
They already have done that.
It isn’t just Humanists who object. Apparently at one point, the design may have included a Star of David to remember Jewish soldiers who served, but that seems to be gone now. There are, of course, also Muslim, Hindu, atheist and all manner of others who equally deserve to feel recognized and included.
Also, is there nobody on the committee who (whom??!!) can write a grammatically correct inscription for the memorial? Native speakers of Standard American English ought also to be included in remembrance.
The displays should be sized by the ratio of proponents for each monument. Atheists, believing in nothing, would obviously have no statue or monument at all. Animists would have a small one, Christians a large on, Jews and Muslims would have them in sizes proportionate to the numbers of each who have served in the US military. I’m not sure how to proportion monuments for combo pagans/Christians or Jewish atheists, though.
Sigh. I know how this is going to go.
All the Catholic cheerleaders will scream that people of faith are being persecuted by mainstream culture and unreasonable justices. None of them will recognize that people in the past simply used a christian majority to impose their will on others.
Bottom line: you should not use public funds to display support for Christian beliefs. By using tax dollars, you’re inevitably compelling non-Christians to help finance a Christian display through state force. I cannot see how you fail to understand this is an illicit practice, especially since the CCC instructs us that it is immoral to compel attendance of Catholic worship through legal force.
How is this teaching any different than compelling non-Christians to finance a Christian display? The display is a slam dunk constitutional failure.
“…simply used a christian majority to impose their will on others.”
Do you even read what you post before you press the “Post Comments”?
The majority of those who gave their lives were and are Christian.
When the atheists and Hindu become the majority (or heck, just for you… a greater minority), come back and try that one again.
Keith, read about the ‘Tyranny of the Majority” in Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”.
Majority rule is the norm in a pure democracy. The United States is a representative republic in which voting majorities are restricted in what laws they can pass by constitutional rights. The Constitution does not authorize any government entity to act in any way that might aid in establishing any particular religious belief among the populace.
Thus, Christians, Hindus, Jews ect. are equally restricted from using state power to use tax dollars to finance displays.
Would be nice if you understood the framework of our government.
I don’t need to read Tocqueville to know error when I see it from you.
The Christians who shed their blood have the moral right. Others less so.
I sure don’t need you to give me a civics lesson much less on on Christianity.
Keith, you very much need a civics lesson. It’s not my fault you didn’t pay attention during school.
How, exactly, is Christian blood more valuable than say Buddhist blood? To me, every soldier who sacrifices pays the same price: their life. Just because many other soldiers around him happen to practice a similar faith doesn’t change the cost of any single individual’s sacrifice.
Keith, if you like majoritarinism so much, I’m sure you’d support the majority deciding to rescind the Church’s tax exempt status and seize all Church property to help pay down the national debt.
You and I both know you would suddenly start screaming about Constitutional rights and minority rights. Of course, you’re a liar who won’t admit you want to push your favored views on others through majority tyranny.
The Blood of Christ, JonJ, is found in the faithful Christian soul. You sure have no clue about Catholicism … get off your devil’s wagon and follow Jesus.
JonJ, you have no understanding of Constitutional government. The govt shall not infringe on religion … because the Bill of Rights announces freedom of religion. Freedom does not stop at the door to Congress or any govt building even though the sodomite congress in our day believes otherwise.
Tocqueville was not gay, JonJ; thus, your entire interpretation of his works is false. How can you really think a gay man could ever get his bearing straight on any issue? That would defy nature.
We understand the framework of our government, but not your twisted interpretation of it! You have secularism confused with your militant atheism.
JonJ, it was Christians and God fearing men who penned and signed the First Amendment … you fools who say there is no God but Caesar serve only to destroy yourselves and anyone else you can.
Skai, and those God fearing Men created the Establishment clause.
But, you don’t need the Establishment clause to understand the moral impropriety of this act. The CCC tells us it is immoral to compel worship by force. What difference is it to seize tax dollars under threat of getting hauled off to prison by state agents to pay for a religious display? Thus, this display not only violates the Establishment clause it also conflicts with the CCC.
Just because I do not think it is right or moral to compel people who might have other beliefs to pay for a Christian display does not make me an atheist. It just means you’re a power hungry bully that wants to use religious belief as an excuse to exert vicarious authority against others.
Really pretty pathetic.
Bill of Rights forbids the govt from interfering with religion, regardless of whether it has to do with any govt property, JonJ. If you’d stop going to black masses, and seek exorcism, then you might be saved.
Maybe in your own mind, Skai. But there isn’t a court in the land that agrees with you.
And, such a construction of the Bill of Rights would violate the CCC instruction that it is immoral to compel worship. If the government can seize tax dollars to compel worship of Jesus (and erect monuments), then it is seizing tax dollars from people who do not follow the Christian faith. Those individuals religious rights have thus been infringed by government.
Of course in my own mind, JonJ, and also in history. You seem to be putting forth the subtle lie that the gays have always run rampant over everyone else. Some day the people will all wake up and then your gay day will go into history as a dark time for all. The sun will come out again, JonJ.
The establishment clause is a spin on what those God fearing men actually created, JonJ. That is why it took two centuries for the gay brigades to hoodwink the voters into the sham. Also, it would have helped had the USA bishops maintained sufficient holiness, but they let it go for more worldly, fleshly and devilish things … which of course is where you came into the limelight.
Uhh, Skai, where did “gay” come into this issue?
Are you saying that all the jurists who took part in our current Constitutional interpretation of “separation of church and state” are gay? Were the bishops, clergy and theologians who approved the CCC instruction that we should not compel worship by force also gay?
Is this more of your vaunted “graduate level” reasoning and argumentation? Maybe you should go back for more ECT.
Using the sporting analogy, if we’re the Catholic cheerleaders, you’re the armchair quarterbackbiter, criticizing all the plays, whining about how bad the coach is and the team owner should be crucified. Yeah, you’re right for once…we ARE the cheerleaders and you’re not. I wonder what team you’d be playing on if one ever met your specifications…the YellowBelliedSapsuckers? heh heh Rah! Rah!
Dana, I will readily admit I’m very critical of the Catholic Church.
Of course, I am that way because I expect far more from the Catholic Church than any other. If the child abuse scandal has taught us anything, it has told the laity that we cannot just sit back and accept everything Church authorities say. We have a duty to correct them when they fail their duties to both God and the laity.
Its funny how the traditionalists are just as quick to attack any decision by the Magesterium that does not fit their traditionalist bias.
JonJ, what you expect of the Catholic Church is not fit to print. Repent.
I expect faithful Catholics not to stand by and watch bigots, liars, and power hungry losers claim that the Catholic faith supports their sins.
I’m not surprised this expectations doesn’t make you happy.
JonJ, your posts cycle as if you think you’re St Peter playing the line out and then reeling it back in, over and over again. You’re not really fooling anyone, but you are providing fodder for the faithful to use in explaining the Word of God and shining the light of Christ on evil intent.
Dana, would you have donned your skirt and pom poms to support the Inquisition when they tortured confessions from people they only SUSPECTED of Heresy?
That is the way society used to be, JonJ. What a dork you are for assuming that history is different from the way it was! But you fanatic gay tyrants want to run down society once again until it backlashes against the gays and regulates them into the dark crevasses they have emerged from.
JonJ, sodomite does not make right … you can quote me on this.
“You won’t find an atheist in a foxhole” is but one phrase that also happens to be a truism. As an Army Vietnam veteran, I get a little irate when these groups come out of the woodwork spreading their nonsense. Almost always, you find they never served their country and they mock those who did by tearing down our beliefs. Go back into your holes and take the ACLU with you!
Ok this is so stupid! If you look at the image, the soldier is clearly kneeling representing fallen soldiers. Instead of a head stone they have a cross to represent that, which is a symbol that has been used forever.. “is of opinion that such use of the sign was not merely ornamental, but rather a symbol of consecration, especially in the case of objects pertaining to burial.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_cross
The cross in this image replaces a head stone. So I wonder if there was a headstone people would still complain but just hanging up on there is a cross. If God isn’t real, and Christ didnt die on the cross for our sins, and there is no satan (rough quote of atheistic views) then who cares! Why are they worried. They can just sit back at laugh at all of us fools who do believe, and is fools will kneel down and pray for their souls.
Exactly, Deb. Kneeling in reverence to the American flag should be sufficient for this purpose.
Kneeling to the flag? No one kneels to a flag…that is idol worship. I bend my knee to no one or no thing but my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Only our president kneels to foreign potentates…well, deep bows but it’s still an act of reverence. No American is to kneel to any earthly king. Well, that’s just my opinion. I have no idea anymore what the rules are. God bless all.
peter, the American flag is not rainbow colored. Repent and follow Jesus.
Your headline that includes ” sue to stop veteran kneeling” is grossly inaccurate and falsely inflammatory. As your staff should clearly understand from the civil right group’s statements, the suit is to stop a religiously significant cross from being displayed on public property. Not to prevent any person, veteran or not, from practicing a personal action like kneeling or even praying where ever they want, so long as it does not interfere with the right of others. And of course is not sponsor by, or required by, the act of a government or government official.
I suspect I understand why your publication chose to falsely describe this situation, and that action is despicable.
If the government in this case wants to honor a fallen soldier, an more universal way to do so would be to depict a rifle, inserted into the ground muzzle down, with a helmet sitting, open end down, over the stock of the weapon. This would honor and not insult a jewish soldier, or an atheist soldier.
gary cyclops hale, the act of kneeling implies religion. You gay atheists can never come up with anything other than stupidity and irreverence … you’re like a six year old boy who wants the world to be his. It’s not.
Where, Skai, did you get that gary is a gay atheist. Did you just make that up? Or is it an integral part of your theology of beer and popcorn to accuse everyone of being gay and atheist if they point something out here on CCC?
From common knowledge, YFC, that the only people who do such stuff are raging homosexuals Hell driven to attack the Church and destroy the govt. Nobody in their right mind would do stuff like this demoniac is doing.
I grew up in an unabashedly Christian nation, Mr. Hale (certainly no descendant of Nathan)…and people were proud of our heritage as children of God and followers of Christ. Somehow our nation has been hijacked by spineless atheists who should be countersued for infringement on religious liberty and gross traitorism…there are countries all around the world who hate Christ and God and would welcome these people who hate religion (specifically, Christianity)…China, N.Korea, and Cuba to name a few. That’s what any nation becomes who says you suppress religious rights…you have China. I say the ACLU should have a whopping huge law suit put together by the American people (I’d send a contribution) for all the years of destroying our way of life, eroding tradition and suppressing our religious freedoms.
You’re not concerned about honoring Jewish or Hindu soldiers…you just want to destroy what is good and honorable for the sake of what? Why? I would say everything always comes down to either money or jealousy.
Dana, let’s suppose I wanted to build a $10 million nativity display in my front yard. Since I don’t have 10 million dollars, I decide to hack into the local bank and take 1 cent from every transaction until I accumulate 10 million.
Is that moral? And how is it any different if a city council decides to do it when the law does not authorize such a tax?
JonJ, go and report your conspiracy immediately.
Lawsuit against the ACLU, Dana?! Why not a criminal charge against all its members?
Fascists delight in instructing others how to live!
OK, I am confused, Francis. What is ungrammatical about “Freedom is never free”?
Also, the soldier is not kneeling before the cross in an act of specifically Christian worship before a symbol or icon of faith, but is simply grieving and/or saying a prayer before a fellow soldier’s grave, which is indicated by the cross. It is hard to depict a grave and a grieving soldier paying his respects/praying in silhouette without something obvious to symbolize the grave.
I am certain that it was not the artist’s intention to exclude other faiths and “establish” the Christian faith as the only truly American faith, which would indeed be contrary to the First Amendment when paid for with tax dollars, but to acknowledge the price paid in lives for our freedom. Since the use of the cross to say “This is a grave” does not seem to be working with many observers, maybe the artist might rethink the design.
Roberto:
I agree that “Freedom is never free” is grammatical (at least as far as I know). However, that statement conflates liberty with freedom. Freedom is a grace given by God alone, liberty is a political value. It is entierly possible to live free without liberty, as for example Christ on the cross or any of the martyrs. Our soldiers by their valor defend liberty, and for that all of us owe them gratitude.
What’s ungrammatical is use of “whom” in the subject of the first sentance. It ought to read “…men and women who by their service…” The men and women are subjects, not objects of service. Nit-picky perhaps, but the good sisters who taught me would never have accepted that in a composition past 4th grade. An inscription on a $50k monument ought to pay more attention to being grammatically correct.
To me at least, it is clear that the soldier is NOT “simply grieving and/or saying a prayer before a fellow soldier’s grave.” The soldier is not visiting a cemetary, but carrying full field gear. As gary hale pointed out already, the helmet on a rifle planted muzzle-down universally symbolize a soldier’s field grave, if that’s what was intended. If the scene is supposed to represent a military cemetary, the headstones are always headstones with half-round tops, not crosses. A headstone is also very easy to depict in an image, and requires no religious symbol at all for everyone to know what it is. The image makes sense if he’s kneeling before a Christian memorial, not a grave.
As for the artist’s intention, does it really matter? No doubt the artists who designed the “modern” churches discussed on another thread had no intention to offend God or waste money with their designs.
Francis, why don’t you simply provide a quote of some dictionary or reference text and then blow your hot air … oops, that is what you do already.
Crosses on or memorializing the dead are symbols of eternal life. The gays want them removed so as to obliterate the work and rewards of God.
Hatred stirreth up strifes: and charity covereth all sins. Proverbs 10:12
That’s true, Abeca. However, once a group objects—well—they are correct when it comes to the law.
Abeca, you don’t know how prophetic your blog, your Scripture quote, really is. It would amaze you if I told you, but I can’t on this blog. But it really is a sign from Heaven … and don’t try guessing, as you won’t figure out what I’m talking about. But it has to do with charity covering all sin. I’ve seen that not a few small time politicians have very charitable hearts and help many young people who have some of the most difficult lives to live.
Let us pray that this City Council actually has courage!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
That would just waste money, Kenneth. They’d eventually end up paying the other side’s legal fees because the case is a clear loser.
Not if the elected members of govt were not lawyers, JonJ. That is the problem now and it was the problem in the days right during the days when Jesus told them they were devil’s and corrupt crudsucking leaches (monuments filled with dead men’s bones, ie hypocrites, the lowest of the low, the devil’s henchmen).
These “Humanists” are like little brats not getting their way. What they are doing is nothing shy of irreverence toward those who have sacrificed their lives to guarantee them the freedoms they now abuse. These atheist creeps hold nothing sacred. They expect tolerance but refuse to grant it to others. They and the ACLU are one of a kind, an unholy alliance against all that is decent and noble. They cannot be reasoned with; they must be defeated.
Anton, your argument would make perfect sense IF the families of the fallen soldiers or a Christian soldiers group or some well-heeled third party were to erect the monunment on private property using their own funds.
It’s quite another thing when a City Council seizes tax dollars collected by threat of criminal tax evasion charges from the public (including non-christians) to erect a religious display that is prohibited by constitutional law.
The govt shall not infringe religion, JonJ. But you atheist sodomites would have govt restricting the free exercise of religion. Your deluded minds are so full of the vanities of your souls that you actually believe that any hint of religion in, on or near a govt property has to do with the govt: psychology calls this paranoia, JonJ. But the Church calls it guilt.
Skai, spare me your attempts to play lawyer and play psychiatrist. Just because 501 citizens of Podunk vote to erect a $100 million crucifix in the town square does not mean that the 499 who voted against do not have religious freedom.
The “town” of Podunk does not have a collective religious will—INDIVIDUALS have that. This is communist thinking.
Consequently, when 501 citizens of Podunk vote to erect their $100 million cross, they’re infringing on the freedom of religion of the 499.
Freedom of religion does not include the freedom to steal from your neighbor in order to put up religious displays. Of course, only people concerned with morality and the CCC would understand this—not power hungry bullies that only use religion as a mechanism for their desire to gain power over others.
JonJ, you only short circuit yourself when you interpret my blogs by the legal/psychological schemes. Try interpreting by the Gospel, and you would at least be on track to understanding some day.
JonJ, you like the mega dense urban cities, right? Do you have yourself a nice and well appointed sardine can that you live in?
JonJ, what would you have cities spend tax dollars on, gay parades?
Hello, I’d have cities spend dollars on infrastructure, law enforcement, public education—-and a hand up for the poor instead of a hand out.
They’re already doing that, Anonymous. Any other bright suggestions? The hand up for the poor idea: How do you envision that this effort is coming along lately? In light of Jesus saying that the poor will always be with us, what do you think about this? Oops, in your case I should ask, what do you feel about this?
The government has no right to interfere with people expressing their religion on govt property … because, JonJ, the govt does not own the property; the people own it. When is the last time you saw a Govt signature on a deed to any govt property? Isn’t the signature that of a human being?
The grave sites at San Bruno Military Cemetery in California and many other such grave sites here in different cemeteries have just a typical arch-shaped standing stone with a cross or other insignia carved into it along with the name and rank of the person and the date of their birth and death. It seems to be acceptable to everyone.
Anne, I agree with you, in that I’ve attended many military funerals, and the gravestone contains a religious symbol IF the deceased military member HAD a religion.
I believe there is even a distinction between Catholics and Protestants in the way the cross is etched onto the stone, but I could be wrong…one with a circle, one without a circle?
Now, of course, we have military chaplains who are Muslims and Buddhists and such, so our military headstones will surely include other symbols on them in addition to the Jewish and Christians symbols.
What I like is that the average reader is catching on to the coalition of atheists and homosexuals on the battlefront against Christians. The Godless coalition has forged a strong front with the aid of the Anti-Christian media and have graduated from campaigning for “equal rights” to militant persecution of Christians or any symbolism that may remotely suggest the existence of Christianity within American culture. The aggressors and their allies, in their hateful campaign to wipe out Christianity, will even go as far as interfering within religious websites as we see here.