Monday, May 30, 2011

Atheists vs. American Legion: The Legality of Utah’s Highway Crosses

We read:
"Atheists continue to rail against the presence of 13 crosses on Utah’s public highways. While the legal debate between the Utah Highway Patrol and its supporters and American Atheists (the organization staunchly opposed to the crosses) has gone back and forth for some time now, a 2010 ruling declared the religious symbols “unconstitutional.”

But, the debate is far from over. Just days before the United States celebrates Memorial Day, the American Legion has announced its plans to enter into the debate in support of the crosses. For history’s sake, these markers were constructed in 1998 to memorialize fallen Utah Highway Patrol staff (marking the spots where they had perished).

An American Atheists blog responding to attacks as to why they hated crosses called the memorial monuments “highly offensive,” and that for crosses to represent troopers who could possibly be of another faith or no faith is insulting.

But according to a Christian Science Monitor article, the families of each fallen Utah trooper were consulted before the erection of the crosses and no one objected. A photo of each trooper is also used at the site.

Source

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's only one way to solve this problem, one that seems to be never ending. And the solution is a rather simple one. Put a $5K bounty on the head of every atheist. Not only would this end their anti-Christian crusade, but it would also help many, many Americans to become employed again, whle at the same time, bringing back some fun the whole family can enjoy. Also, there is the pleasure of knowing that you helped rid the land of this vermin.

Anonymous said...

What a very Christian final solution - Jesus would be so proud that his example was being followed!

Anonymous said...

"Put a $5K bounty on the head of every atheist."

Especially Jon Jay Ray, the atheist who created Tongue Tied 3.

Anonymous said...

2:02 & 2:14 are obviously not christian and quite possibly the same person.

A simple solution to these nuisance lawsuits is to deed the land under the memorial to the memorial. Have the state legislature as custodial entity. What lawmaker would be foolish to go against their own enforcement agency.
Instead of consulting the families of the fallen as to the stile of the memorial have the families designate what they want .
As a preventive measure to future frivolous lawsuits all patrolmen would designate the stile of memorial should this tragedy happen to them .

ISH GEBOR

Anonymous said...

3:34 GEBOR You would like to think they might be the same person and not Christian. But they are not the same person and 2:02 is at least very pro-Christian.

Liberty's Rest Blog said...

If the government gives memorials to all troopers, letting the families decide the form the memorial takes, I see no issue with this. The government is clearly not establishing a religion as prohibited by the Constitution, but rather treating all employees equally under the law.

Anonymous said...

who cares what atheists think, they going to hell anyway, except the creator of tongue tied.

Anon 2:02 said...

Thank you Anon 7:29. At least someone got it.

Anonymous said...

I think this is really interesting.
Utah is majority LDS. The LDS generally avoid the use of the cross - so a memorial using the cross is certainly not representative of the local majority faith.
So, it follows then that it has little sectarian significance.

Anonymous said...

Let me see if I understand this correctly. The state of Utah is mostly made up of those of the Mormon Faith. The Mormon Faith does not use the cross in jewelry or on/in their churches. The majority of people in the state of this faith have no problem with cross memorials for fallen troopers even though they do not use that symbol for their religion or worship. But they have no problem with it obviously as they are in the majority as far as the voting population goes. They probably don't see it as a religious symbol, otherwise they could change it themselves since they control the state government through numbers alone. Thus it is not a religious symbol as viewed by the majority of Utah residents who are also Mormon and the athiests should go jump in a lake.

Anonymous said...

The Mormon majority was still not allowed to practise polygamy officially.

Anonymous said...

Just another case of someone telling another that 'this' should be offensive to you. If you're not offended, you should be!

~darko

Freedom = the right to be offended.

Spurwing Plover said...

Just as bad at that newdow idiots who thinks the whole nation must obide by his atheeists ideas Typical of selfish self centred atheists wackos and products of the ME genaration