What do you see?
Do you have much doubt about it?
It could be the letter "t."
But suppose it is eight feet tall and erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars on federal land to honor American soldiers who died in World War I.
What is it?
I checked a dozen dictionaries, encyclopedias, and similar sources. Here is what I learned. It is "a symbol of Christianity." It is "the best-known religious symbol of Christianity." It is "the principal symbol of the Christian religion." It is "an emblem of Christianity." It is "the most familiar and widely recognized symbol of Christianity." It is "the symbol of Christian faith." It is "the cross of Christ's crucifixion."
There doesn't seem to be much doubt about it.
Except to some of the justices on the Supreme Court of the United States. According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, in this week's decision in Salazar v. Buono, the "cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs. It is a symbol often used to honor and respect those whose heroic acts, noble contributions, and patient striving help secure an honored place in history for this Nation and its people. [...] It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."
So, it's not "a symbol of Christianity"? It's not "the principal symbol of the Christian religion"? It's not "the symbol of Christian faith"? It's not "the cross of Christ's crucifixion"? It's a neutral symbol that just happens to be "used to honor [...] those whose heroic acts [...] help secure an honored place in history for this Nation."
And the American flag doesn't symbolize America? And the swastika doesn't symbolize Nazism? And a burning cross doesn't symbolize the KKK? And the Golden Arches don't symbolize McDonald's?
In its 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation. In so doing, the Court considered the symbolic meaning of the legally-mandated separation of blacks and whites into "colored only" and "white only" railroad cars: "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."
The Court is wrong in Salazar for the same reason it was wrong in Plessy: In both cases, the justices allowed meaning to be determined by the perceptions of the dominant forces in society, who like to imagine that their understanding of the world is neutral, natural, and objective. It is not.
The inherent message of segregation was not one of racial neutrality, but of racial subordination and inferiority. The inherent message of the cross is not a neutral testament to fallen heroes, but a potent affirmation by government of the Christian religion. This our Constitution does not allow.
Menachem Wecker: Was Jesus Really Crucified?
David Weinberger: No Cross for Me, Thanks Anyway
Cross - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian cross - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Christian Cross Symbol - ReligionFacts
The Mojave cross ruling: a blow to the 1st Amendment
Supreme Court overturns objection to cross on public land
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You know, if I lived in the San Diego area I might have stolen it myself.
I was wondering why it wasn't removed in the night long before now.
Whoever stole it, good for you.
Now, what else needs to be stolen?
So glad we Atheists are coming out of the closet and taking a stand. Now we just need God off our money and out of our schools.
Many christians are conditioned to lie for their faith. As with the characters in the Dover case who insisted that Intelligent Design was not religiously motivated, even as one wrote a check from his church funds to pay for the textbooks and then lied about it.
Judge Jopnes on lying christians:
"""It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.""""
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/05/controversial-war-memorial-cross-stolen-from-californias-mojave-desert/1
I am sure that makes a whole lot of people happy on the HP...
Illegal. Not a simple fix. You are as misguided as your city.
"The Court is wrong... for the same reason...In both cases, the justices allowed meaning to be determined by the perceptions of the dominant forces in society..."
This quote highlights some foundational problems with how some in America view ethics and morality.
For if morality is determined by the individual, and every thing is relative between individuals, then the court would have no right to impose its opinions, but neither would Mr. Stone (except with as much authority as each given individual attributes to either party).
If morality is determined within and by a social context, then...
A: You have no effective method of judging other social contexts (including historical social contexts) as moral/immoral. The best you can say is, "we *consider* them moral/immoral".
B: It becomes precisely right and just for the justices to form opinions based on "dominant forces within the society"/culture.
I've made the argument simplistic. There's a litany of various ethical systems not addressed here. But I feel one of the two I mentioned above is dominant in American Culture.
Do you agree/disagree that one of the two above is dominant?
Do you agree/disagree that, if one of them is, it leads logically to where claim it does?
Having said that, in a democracy the will of the people i.e. dominant forces in society should be decided politically and not judicially. And in the case of crosses symbolizing dead people, it is definitely a religious symbol and has been for thousands of years. So the justices should have restricted themselves to the Constitutional issues rather than the political and reinforced the First Amendment in my opinion.
That's because it is a deliberate attack on the Constitution, to overthrow a vital part of the Constitution and turn the U.S. into a theocracy. That's an attack on the U.S. itself, and that makes it treason.
I have no problem with people being Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. in their private lives. I'll support their right to pray in appropriate public places. Go to a park and without bothering other people, kneel and pray. Do it on a street corner so long as you don't block other pedestrians. etc. Put up copies of the 10 Religious Expressions or crosses on your lawns, your church lawns, your business windows (although that might cost you some business).
But the moment a Christian (or a member of any other religion) uses or tries to use the power of the government to force everyone to pray to a particular god or in a particular way or to subject people to looking at religious symbols on public propety, then it becomes treason. That's because Christianity is a murderously totalitarian movement that never tolerated dissent or religious minorities. The whole goal of putting a cross on gov't property is to assert that Christians own/control this country. History shows this is not something trivial, naive or harmless. It's very very dangerous.
It is not torturous for people to view religious symbols on public property. Christians, the true Christians don't claim to own or control this country. If any do, then you know they aren't Christians.
A HA - and there's the nut!!! What defines someone as a "true christian" - this is meaningless as it cannot be accurately defined.
Separating church and state and allowing free worship is easy. No religious symbols of any kind on public land...do what you want, worship what you want on your own private land. Not so tough.
I also believe that Christians should read Jesus' admonition to not stand on the street corner and pray to show people how pious you are. That you should go into your closet and pray. Practice what your own savior preached.