Should It Stay Or Should It Go?

Barack has already said we aren’t a Christian nation. He has additionally said we are one of the world’s largest Muslim nations. I don’t know. Nothing makes any sense anymore. It is almost futile to try to look at things like this and to try to be logical about it. Like all branches of government, the judicial too is now a runaway in search of unfettered power and influence. Barack has already appointed one Supreme Court justice. I expect several more of the old justices who were hanging on just to oppose Bush being able to replace them will find a reason to get out soon… so that Barack can shape the court in his image of what America should have been. Whatever that image is… it isn’t a Christian nation I am fairly certain.

Even debating this is silly…..The silent majority will speak up in 2010. and next month in New Jersey and Virginia look for a gop sweep.

Garrison Keillor and Leonard Pitts, both devout liberal columnists, have said that this case, although perhaps technically constitutionally correct, it is taking the separation of church and state to an extreme and is just plain silly.

Rightly or wrongly, I believe that no matter what the final results are, the Dems will suffer because the Right will demagogue it to death and blame them for it.

It’s definitely a lose/lose for them.

Let me see if I understand. The cross is a monument to a war of almost a century ago? It is located in the middle of nowhere? Why is this issue important enough to even consider, much less take all the way to the Supreme Court?

There appears to be some space around the cross. Why not just erect a monument to honor non-Christian veterans?

And then worry about an issue that really matters, like true equality for women?

I think the issue here is important, especially in the context of the concerns surrounding our founding documents.

Jefferson, et al, wanted to make certain that no religion or sect gained dominance in the temporal/political sphere. To that end they vigorously pushed for both religious freedom (in the Constitution) and freedom from religious persecution (see the political battles in Virginia that defined the issue).

The only practical way to achieve this is to bar any and all religious signs, symbols, displays and/or presentations from any and all public arenas. The reason we should be vigilant about this is that there is the persistent pressure from any number of religions to have us, as a nation, accede to their view of the universe, each one believing that god is on their side. If we give in a little here and a little there, we eventually allow a build up of cultural acceptance - sort of a ’stare decisis’ of the society - that becomes a legitimizing canopy for yet more religious incursions into public life.

So, no, take the cross down. You want to honor those veterans? Buy yourself a piece of property and put it up there.

Why must some asshats go so far out of their way to be offended? This cross has stood in the dessert for all these years as a tribute to veterans. Now one man, a Roman Catholic at that, living in Oregon, decides that he finds it offensive and is able to cause so many Veterans such pain.

I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. But this is going out of your way to find an example. Leave these elderly people, these elderly veterans and their Mojave Memorial alone.

And the asshat from Oregon needs to find something else to do with his time. He wants to see offensive? Look in the mirror Bozo, look real long and real hard. Enjoying his 15 minutes no doubt.

so, the Supreme Court will waste their time on this issue, but the eligibility of a President under article 2 is a bit much to look at? Yes, ok. I understand. Don’t hurt yourself their SCOTUS, taking hard cases or anything.

so, the Supreme Court will waste their time on this issue, but the eligibility of a President under article 2 is a bit much to look at? Yes, ok. I understand. Don’t hurt yourself there SCOTUS, taking hard cases or anything.

In our Constitution it says freedom “OF” religion not from religion. More than 70% of Americans are Christian of one denomination or another. Majority rules, lets keep the cross.

for those of you who have not been in the high desert this cross is about as far off the beaten path as it could possibly be.let the land transfer go ahead and be done with it.

So do we remove the cross at Robert Kennedy’s arlington national cemetary since that is national land too.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/visitor_information/Robert_F_Kennedy.html

It should stay. The cross was placed there by Veterans who served and died, lost friends well before political correctness came along.
If a person doesn’t like the cross just don’t look at it and mind your own business.
I bet should an islamic Crescent or a Gay flag be raised no one would say a word.

I was raised in a very religious Protestant home. The religion of my grandparents, which they first took to Russia, then to the U.S., is part of who I am. Religion can also be seen as a cultural identifier in a sense. I am no longer as fundamentally religious as I was growing up, and would not know how to classify myself, except as spiritual.

I view this cross as more of a historical and a cultural symbol than a religious symbol at this point. What a nice, small piece of American history from a terrible, deadly war. I read about this controversy before this post in one of those emails that circle the web. Those soldiers seeking solace in the dessert need to be honored the way they wanted to be, with the artifact they created.

Even if I would now say that I’m a Rosicrucian, a Jewish convert, a Buddhist or a New Age convert from Boulder–whatever, I can NOT see myself taking this cross as an affront because it is on government land. Just erect a historical marker explaining the history on the road nearest where you can see the cross and let it be.

It struck me as very important when I toured Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (not Constantinople) that the secular government of Turkey preserved a mix of both the Christian and the later Muslim aspects of that marvelous place. And the building was surrounded by aspects of Roman and stolen ancient Greek monuments and next to the Ottoman Topkapi Palace compound and across from the Blue Mosque. As a history buff, I was in heaven. It is a city so steeped in history.

We in the U.S. have such a short history. As a person raised in the West, in Colorado, I go to the East Coast and marvel at being able to see “old” buildings from the eighteenth century. To us here in the Wild West, that is old. To the rest of the world, it’s yesterday. I go to Mesa Verde and marvel at the cliff dwellings of people who practiced what we might call a pagan religion.

Give us a chance to develop a history for our descendants. While I may be worried that our current POTUS’s mission is to create a totally different nation than the one that was founded in the eighteenth century, I can still hope to think of this country having a longer history ahead for generations to come.

We get our panties in a wad over such stupid things and don’t get upset about big things, like–for instance–election fraud.

Let the Cross stand!

This piece neglects to mention that a different group requested permission to put up a Buddhist shrine near the cross, but was denied that right.

http://topics.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-472

So, the government, here, was definitely favoring one religion over another.

The respondent, Buono, and his lawyers have no problem with Arlington Cemetery or any other national cemetery where each person has the right to have over him the monument of his choice: a cross, a Jewish Star, or a plain monument. Their quarrel here is that the government has permitted only one religious group to have its religious symbol on the property.

It is designated as a memorial to the World War I soldiers, but there were soldiers of other religions who fought and died in that war and would hardly feel their service has been respected.

The Vietnam War Memorial respects the service of all the service people who died in that war.

You can read the full transcript of the oral argument in Salazar v. Buono here:

htp://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/08-472.pdf

There are more issues involved than are presented here.

The Constitution doesn’t say that you can’t put up a Christion Memorial. What it does say is that all Religions must be treated equally. If you put up a memorial in one Religion and somebody from another Faith also wants to put up one, the Gov’t has to allow it. With that stipulation, if they want to put up the Memorial, let them.

I find it disturbing that most people posting here are all too willing to support a display of a particular religious symbol on Federal land. If it is a “cultural” display then let’s replace that cross with a Jewish Star of David or, better yet, a Moslem Crescent. Those too are cultural displays. But, it never is the Star of David and it never is a Buddha.

And this “one person” as you like to call him actually stands for me and many like me. People who have served this country and do not want our service represented by the Christian symbol which means absolutely nothing to us. I feel deeply that a Christian cross is used as a tool to deny the different faiths, or lack of faith, of many who have fought and died for this country.

“it will be difficult, if not impossible, to convince many non-Christian veterans that an isolated, freestanding cross expressly recognizes their service to the country. “

…of course, that’s based soley on a religious standpoint.

Maybe they can just say “it’s style”. I have a friend who is Muslim, although…much of what he does is against their word, but we were talking about things when he was going back home for a visit because his friends would ask if he was still a Muslim or a Christian if he wore a cross on his shirt as some of the new styles have. But said “that’s fine, because it is the style, even my shoes have it”. I laughed. I never noticed, his fav pair of shoes has a big cross on the top toe area on each shoe.

It’s the style stupid!

There has been a very long-running argument about this in San Diego. (Google “cross on Mt Soledad”)

Every court decision has been against the cross being there, including the Supreme Court. Should the Court decide that the cross in the Mohave Desert can stay, it would most certainly impact the cross on Mt. Soledad.

I do not think a cross belongs as a memorial on Federal land. A war memorial does not need to be in the shape of a cross. Those dead soldiers were not fighting a religious crusade, they were fighting for their country and all its people, whether or not they have religious beliefs and whatever those religious beliefs might be.

Insisting that the memorial has to be a cross leads me to wonder if it is really a memorial or an excuse to put Christian symbols where they don’t belong.

Federal cemeteries allow crosses or Stars of David on graves.

Personally, I think it should stay,for this reason. I don’t think the founders of our country wanted to ban all signs of religious artifacts. I can understand not wanting to have a religion that is forced upon us by our government, but I also believe that religion or religious artifacts should be forced to go into hiding, either, because that in itself is a form of religious persecution.

Should we not have Holocaust Memorials that show a Jewish Star of David because it might be offensive to others of other faiths or no faith? Should the Jewish Star of David be removed from graves of soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery? Should soldiers be banned from wearing a crucifix or a cross around their necks? How far do we go with this?

It saddens me that those who are not religious are forcing their hatred for religion on everyone.

Sticky subject, I know…

The Holocaust Museum is not a National Memorial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Memorial

List of U.S. National Memorials
at: http://tinyurl.com/yk2wj86

Hello! I am actually taking a class in the Constitution and the founding of our country. In almost every single document the founding fathers wrote, they mentioned the need for strong, religious morals to guide us as we create and keep our nation strong. They based the setup of the country’s three branches of government upon idealisms in the Bible, and even Franklin, who wasn’t an ardent, church-goer, stated that God was an important part in the ability of a young Republic to stay strong and true. Keep the cross up, and let us honor the message that those who put it there intended. Add other faith symbols, as necessary- so, what would be next? Should we remove crosses from Arlington, because they might offend someone? We have got to get off this horrendous political correctness; I guess one day we won’t even speak to one another, as we might offend someone, in some way- grow up everyone and get off your PC butts! Our country is Christian, and even our laws are based upon the 10 commandments!

This cross is not “historic”; the current cross is the fourth or fifth version that has been put up on that site.

And the government did NOT designate it as an “Historical Monument”; the federal government designated it as a National Memorial. They are two different things and have different standards.

I want to add to my long comment above. As a Westerner, I am used to historical displays that aren’t like the more sophisticated ones you might see in the big cities, and especially back East.

To add to my point that we don’t have the history that is available back East–at least the history of the European conquerors/settlers–and take our history in a more “modern” variety, I should mention the wonderful historical display of artifacts and documents about the Navajo Code Talkers I was extremely surprised to find in, of all places, a McDonald’s restaurant in Tuba City, AZ. I am vegetarian, so go into one of those establishments when my meat eating husband drags me to one. What a nice display they had, right there in the middle of Navajo country. And across the parking lot, I was able to go into some historical displays of early Navajo homes, etc.

The Code Talkers were from WWII, but still, this is OUR history out here in the West.

I understood completely when many of the Native American peoples took back some of the exhibits from our Natural History Museum in Denver. It’s their history and tradition, and to them many of the objects were sacred.

The number of WWI vets still alive is shrinking. Ask high school students about that war and you get blank stares. Heck, ask them about my generation’s war, Viet Nam, and you get annoying questions like, “Was that before or after WWII?”

Preserve our history as it was. I don’t want to be the way we were taught they were in the USSR, always rewriting their history books to fit their new philosophy. That is how those particular vets from that particular war created a monument. So, if it is not a “historical” memorial, quit the fight to have it taken down and change the case to make it one.

Incidentally, the word “Creator” does not appear in our Constitution; it appears only in the Declaration of Independence.

The Constitution controls the actions of our government; the Declaration of Independence does not.

The assault on the cross is reminiscent of the Taliban assault on the giant Buddhas. It is a piece of history, frozen in a particular time.

I read about this quite awhile ago, can’t remember where. It was about the man and his wife who had looked after this cross for many years, and what this lawsuit had done to them. They could not understand (and neither do I) why someone who has never even seen this cross, could file a lawsuit to have it removed, the main reason being “if that person might ever drive to the middle of nowhere, down a dirt road in the desert, and happened to see this cross, he would be offended by it.” The cross has been there for many, many years. Then the man had to put canvas up to cover it. It hurt him deeply that anyone would find this tribute so offensive that it must be hidden from view. NO ONE even sees this cross! People have lost all perspective that when this cross was put up, no one had a thought if it was infringing on anyone else’s rights. A cross was a common “marker” and I don’t think they were trying to make any big religious statement….just a tribute to those who fought and died, as the culture was back then. I’m sure it never crossed their mind that anyone would ever protest them using some Federal desert land in the middle of nowhere to make their private memorial. Yes, in later years things changed and I have no problem with that. It is just going too far to try to remove all past United States artifacts, in the name of….what? I think this memorial should be preserved as a part of our past culture. Removing it erases part our history. The cross has been there for so many years, and no one ever said a word about it, so what is the big problem now?

OOPS, I was supposed to take a right turn at that last stop sign!
Congress respects Jewish holidays, King has a national holiday, we observe Veterans Day, and yet this cross is an issue!
Now, I wonder why Rev. Wright and the Obamas not giving Christmas gifts to their children created so much backlash.
The Confederate Flag is viewed with anger and disdain, although southerners carefully preserve historical artifacts from their ancestors who died for a cause they believed in!
My family is planning our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations now, for we are humbly grateful for our faith.

With so much liberty lost in the last 10 years, it is disgusting that this is what the ACLU wastes its resources on. Its enough to make you want to turn into a fundamentalist just to take sides in this war on America.

There was almost nothing more important to our founding generation than keeping religion and our government separate; that’s why the first clause in the First Amendment (the Bill of Rights) regards religion and keeping the government out of it.

The intermingling of religion and state is NOT a non-issue as some here seem to think; it was of critical importance to our founders that the two be kept separate.

They did not want the government to have anything to do with our religious lives or belief systems, and they didn’t want religion to be involved in controlling our government.

James Madison — widely credited with being the Father of our Constitution — wrote frequently on the topic of keeping religion and government separate:

“Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history”

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together”

“The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state”

“Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government”

More from Madison at: http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/james_madison/

There is a cross on a craggy summit just visable in the distance from the Reagan Library. Is this the same one?