The following comes from an April 22 Mercury News article by Joe Rodriguez:
SANTA CLARA — A local atheist and a national group that advocates for the strict separation of church and state have sued the city to remove a large, white Christian cross at a public park where an 18th century Spanish Catholic mission once stood.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, resident Andrew Defaria and the Freedom From Religion Foundation argue that the 14-foot granite cross is a “blatant religious symbol” that violates the First Amendment of the Constitution and California law.
The cross stands at Memorial Cross Park, a half-acre plot of grass and Spanish colonial landscaping, at the busy intersection of Martin Avenue and De La Cruz Boulevard. A local Lions Club donated the cross in 1953 to mark the site of Santa Clara’s second Franciscan mission, which stood there from 1777 to 1784.
Santa Clara Lions Club president Ginger Stasi, who was not a member at the time, said the cross is a “historic marker” and should stay.
“No one is being forced on their knees to pray there,” she said. “Honestly, there are so many other problems in the world that need fixing.”
Before everyone jumps in here, how would you feel if there were a crescent in the same location? How about one of those silly evolution symbols? An anarchist symbol? A Star of David? A pentagram?
AD, A poor old cross has this spot because of the 18th century SPANISH Catholic mission that once stood there thru history & deserves that spot more than you deserve your opinion. Aren’t you into history being a relative new comer to this spot? Not your cup of tea? Here’s an easy fix? AD, don’t LOOK ‘directly’ at the cross. Have you tried to avert your eyes? It would be so much easier/cheaper for you to never look there. How about, move to a cross less area? (You may like Siberia.) Problem solved & you won’t be blatantly attacking the poor Spanish minority group of people that built the place. Now that seems to be more neighborly & appropriate for this rather silly point you are pursuing. It would make you a bigger and…
….a nicer and maybe happier person too. Creating good will, like a good deed, shines brightly in a weary world. Just saying….
Hey YFC I know your tolerance is your real god, what is it about you that you can’t even defend the symbol of your salvation……all those other symbols you mentioned are false…all of them
Really depends on the circumstances, YFC. If the Star of David or the crescent, for example, commemorated something of historical significance, I don’t think most people would object. Under your theory, we’d need to start re-naming cities across California because of their reference to religion. Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Santa Ana, Santa Rosa all come readily to mind.
Ahem! there IS a Star of David on the seal of the United States, also on the back of a one dollar bill. There IS a carving of the lawgiver (prophet) Mohammed on the frieze at the top of the front of the Supreme Court. Do we need to take those off?
A correction: the frieze is inside the Supreme Court.
With all due respect the entire concept of separation of Church and State was meant to protect the Church from the State not the other way around. There is no such thing as separation of Church and State. Those first American settlers came to America to escape from religious persecution to build a City on the Hill or the New Jerusalem. Once you remove religious freedom you are really creating a totalitarian tyranny not a democratic nation. After all there was a Catholic mission on these grounds so errecting a Cross which signifies Our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ Lord of Lords and King of Kings is very appropriate for these grounds. In the end Jesus Christ and the Angels and Saints in heaven will be victorious. The Cross and…
Sorry but you are incorrect. The first amendment was not meant to protect EITHER church or state, but individual Americans. And these notion of separation of church and state comes from no less than Thomas Jefferson, who wore the amendment AND coined these phrase
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” – this is what the 1st Amendment says. To me ‘Congress’ is a key word here. I see ‘religion’ as an institution in the amendment. In England the ‘Church of England’ was the official ‘state’ religion and other religions were denied ‘free exercise’.
YFC, you have not answered my question yesterday, April 27, at 9:15 pm. Shall we or shall we not take the Star of David off of the Great Seal of the United States and the carving of Mohammed off the frieze on the Supreme Court? They are all religious symbols. And how about the picture of the goddess Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, on the seal of the city of Ceres, California. It seems as if that needs to go too since some people still worship her. (You can google it on line for yourself if you think they do not, and you will still find prayers posted to her.)
Why can’t the Freedom from Religion people be ‘inclusive’? Why are they such BIGOTS in their dislike of religion? Would they prefer the ISIS flag flying in the park? As Rodney King said – “can’t we all just get along????”
Christian cross? Why, I see a lower case letter T. How can a letter from the alphabet be so offensive? The next thing they will want to remove telephone polls, and pre hung doors.
I wish I had thought to say that! Very clever, true and what a good idea Amy. It is officially, the letter ‘t’.
Really people like this should move to a place far, far away from everybody and everything. Maybe someplace that does not have any ‘t’ in their alphabet?
Or a place where tomatoes are not grown or sold because they have a cross in them if you cut them a certain way.
It is also one of the ways to make the Hebrew letter “tau” (or tav or tev), the Seal of Creation. Sounds very Jewish to me.
Has anyone noticed this park is located at the intersection of Martin Avenue and De La Cruz Boulevard? The next thing you know, these folks will want the name of the boulevard changed due to its Christian connotation.
telephone poles.(spelling)
Forever banished would be the letter T from computers, keyboards and iPhones and replaced with, perhaps, the Arabic symbol for T (you will have to look that up). The plus sign would also have to be banished… All a bit of a stretch, yes?
Could you imagine if this was an Islamic star and crescent, they would not even dare to remove it, why you ask, simple they know they would be targeted by death and lawsuits by the Hamas “CAIR” group which have spread like a cancer all over the U..S that good ole religion of “peace” I mean death cult.
Janek, they always go after Christian symbols, They never go after any of the Jewish, Muslim, pagan or other religious symbols that are historical as this cross is. If I remember the Star of David was put on the Great Seal of the United States in honor of a Jewish contributor to the American Revolution. Why should we Christians not be able to honor with a cross the fact that the second mission was once at this spot? It is our right to be able to do so.. The atheist did not start these cities.