Oregon: Jesus banner belongs

Intolerant atheist has issues

As an atheist, Eugene resident René Salm believes a banner with a Christian message violates the separation of church and state because it’s on public property. He’s threatening a lawsuit. Many others who have contacted the city agree. They believe the banner over downtown’s West 11th Avenue should be removed.

But if doing so might make some people feel more comfortable, it would discriminate against the constitutional rights of Virgil Adams, the Eugene resident who, in this case, is like any other person who paid to post his or her community organization’s message since the city began its “hanging banners” effort in 1997.

The banner features “Christmas” and “Jesus” in large letters. Beneath are two statements: “Attend a Church of Your Choice” and “Celebrate His Birth.”

“I feel like I’m being assaulted, telling me to go to church and celebrate Jesus,” Salm told The Register-Guard’s Christian Hill.

That’s understandable. He’s the author of “NazarethGate: Quack Archeology, Holy Hoaxes, and the Invented Town of Jesus” and “The Myth of Nazareth.”

It’s also understandable that were the city to allow a banner promoting an event celebrating atheism — something acting city attorney Kathryn Brotherton suggests the city would willingly do — some Christians would be hot and bothered. So would lots of people if the city allowed the Ku Klux Klan to place a banner — again, which Brotherton says would be allowed.

But, frankly, the First Amendment is less interested in individual feelings than it is in collective freedom.

This is not a case of the city of Eugene playing favorites with religion or endorsing one particular religion, which would clearly be a violation of the First Amendment and its edict that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ... .” Instead, it embodies the continuance of that sentence — “... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

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