Posted on 06/08/2004 4:50:48 AM PDT by rhema
SOMEONE AT THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES Union has apparently, with the help of a magnifying glass, spotted a miniscule cross in the seal of the city of Los Angeles. The detail is part of the seal that represents the city's historical heritage, which is traced back to early Spanish missions. But the ACLU is suing to have the cross expunged as an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
City seals have been targets of the ACLU and their allies for some time. The pattern has usually been to go into some small town and object loudly to a religious allusion on a logo that dates from less sensitive days, and threaten a lawsuit. Usually, the townnot wanting to use taxpayer money in court, even if it might wincaves.
But why is it that militant secularists are so outraged over visual symbols but are oblivious to actual words? There is a little cross in the city seal, but the very name "Los Angeles" means "the Angels." This refers not to the baseball team in Anaheim but to the spiritual beings whose existence is affirmed by Christian teaching. The case will presumably be heard in the capital of California, "Sacramento," the Spanish word for "sacrament." The 9th Circuit federal appeals court, which ruled to censor the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, meets in "San Francisco," a city named after St. Francis.
Why strain at the gnat of visual images (which in this case is about the size of a gnat) while swallowing references to Christianity in language (although admittedly often a foreign language) that are everywhere in American place names? Shouldn't the separation of church and state mandate the separation of church and geography?
Many American cities are named for Roman Catholic saints. California has, according to a rough count from the atlas, 60 of them, from Santa Ana (St. Anne) to San Ysidro (St. Isador). And it isn't just California that does this. Missouri has 21 cities named after saints, from St. Louis to Ste. Genevieve. Texas has 27 cities whose names begin with "St." or "San" or "Santa."
Does that mean that Roman Catholicism is the established religion of those cities? Should Protestants who do not agree with veneration of saints file lawsuits against these cities?
Then there are the place names that Protestants are fine with, but are clearly references to the Christian Bible: Bethlehem, Pa.; Goshen, Ind.; Canaan, Conn.; Zion National Park. There are at least half a dozen states that have a Bethany.
Even if these might be permissible, surely it is an official establishment of religion to have place names that are direct references to the content of Christian belief. Santa Fe means "Holy Faith." Santa Cruz means "Holy Cross." Corpus Christi means "the Body of Christ." The Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico are named after the "Blood of Christ." The meaning of these names is very clear to our many Spanish-speaking immigrants in our increasingly multicultural society.
And what about the Christian doctrines alluded to in plain English in places like Providence, R.I.? Or Trinity, Texas?
And how can we allow Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois to all have a "Christian County"? What about residents in those counties who are not Christians? How does living in a county with such an exclusionary name make them feel?
Language carries much more meaning than a mere visual image. Surely these words carry more of an explicit Christian meaning than a mere visual image. In order to achieve a purely religion-free public square, the ACLU really needs to tackle these names.
That might tax the litigation budget even of the ACLU. These communities could be expected to fight this time, since changing all of the signs, stationery, maps, atlases, and Chamber of Commerce pamphlets would be even more expensive than court costs.
These Christian place names do not seem to bother anyone. Most people, even those who do not share the religion that gave these places their names, do not see them as in any way establishing a state religion. But a visual image in the city's logo does?
Christianity has a historical and a still-living cultural presence in this country that is hard to deny and, however hard the militant secularists try, impossible or at least cost-prohibitive to reverse.
Maybe we can just rename all cities by numbers... I live in City 316 in State 320 with zip 34567. What? Got to rename? "316" might imply reference to the scripture in the book of John. Oh well ...back to the drawing board.
How much longer will we tolerate the ACLU? I am at the point that light violence against them is no longer out of the question.
Secularists, after failure in Soviet Union (where blatant open killing of tens of millions of Christians did not bring desired results), they reverted to the more subtle gradual methods ranging from ACLU challenges to Diversity Celebrations in the public schools.
And let us not forget that it was in the Soviet Union that the city name of St. Petersburg was changed to Leningrad, if I remember correctly.
Now it is back to St. Petersburg, again if I remember correctly.
One flaw - 666..
Nothing can withstand the thought Nazi's..
Heh heh... Name and address = 123-45-6789;316;320;34567;10444.5
''Devoutly religious, Gifford had selected the name for his new town before leaving New York. During the 16th century Calvinist reformers restricted church songs to what was contained in Scripture. A variety of metrical versions of the Psalms were set to music. The Scottish Psalter of 1615 introduced a new feature, common tunes which were not attached to any particular Psalm. Some of them were given names of cities and towns of Scotland. The Scotch tunes were taken up by the English psalteries. Gifford's Puritan ancestors had sung these hymn tunes for generations. He had helped to establish the town of Dundee, New York, which he named after one of' these tunes, and he now chose 'Elgin,' for his Illinois settlement. 'I had been a great admirer of that tune from boyhood,' he explained, 'and the name Elgin had ever fallen upon my ear with musical effect.'''
This was from a book on the history of Elgin Illinois by E.C. (Mike) Alft. At first glance neither Elgin, nor Dundee Illinois would seem to have any religious aspect to their name. But both of them were named after hymns.
Actually they changed the name from St. Petersburg to Petrograd during WWI because of it's German origin, then to Leningrad by Stalin and then back to St. Petersburg (if I remember correctly).
These, as we all know, also have religious roots. We certainly wouldn't want it to appear that we are expunging Christian and Catholic names and symbology in favor of pagan or polytheist names and symbology.
That would be an overt display of federal establishment of an "official" religion.
And while we are on this topic, today's ecology fringe groups are demi religious sects, as are PETA. So, by adopting regulations that ensconse their religious beliefs as codified law the government is practicing the establishment of religion.
And what of athiests? I am a monotheist, myself, but those athiests have an established set of beliefs as well. Why is their religion being established by law, and mine being expunged?
good idea. We can identify our locations by zip codes. Wouldn't that be nice. The ACLU has its head up its.....
Thanks for the information. ;-D
Petrograd is a Russian form of Petersburg - the City of [Saint] Peter. California equivalent would be San Pedro :)
Round them up, put women's panties over their heads and set them adrift in the Pacific ;-)
Humiliation! That is cruel. I was thinking about beating the poop out of them. Women's panties on their heads is going to far. That would be an atrocity.
When I beat them up I will keep telling them how much I like them. I don't want to be accused of a HATE Crime.
Too many cities across the nation have caved into these Socialists.
It is true that the name of many cities and national land marks are named after Christian
beliefs. I think that there is only one way to stop this atrocity against our country. We must fight their fire with extreme volumes of more of their OWN FIRE!
We should DEMAND that the ACLU file suit against Los Angeles to NOW change their name!
Let us quit beating around the bush, no more of this drip, drip, drip. Bring on the end fight NOW! Lets see how the people react to the hidden end goal of the ACLU now.
Lets over fire the boiler and BLOW THE DAMN THING UP!
I would say it's none of the ACLU's business.
After they get rid of any name with a whiff of religious association, they'll go after cities, counties, and other objects named for slaveholders or anyone holding views the ACLU disapproves of.
Maybe we can just rename all cities by numbers... I live in City 316 in State 320 with zip 34567. What? Got to rename? "316" might imply reference to the scripture in the book of John. Oh well ...back to the drawing board.
We could house the ACLU in State 6, City 6, Street 6
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