Posted on 02/01/2005 8:39:16 AM PST by w6ai5q37b
Businessman wants site for Ten Commandments monument.
CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- A man who says he represents an atheist group is planning to bid for a small plot of the county courthouse lawn that a businessman has said he wants to buy as the site for a Ten Commandments monument.
Earl Myler, who heads a company that designs and builds churches, has proposed to Montgomery County commissioners a plan to buy the property in order to return a Ten Commandments monument to the lawn, where a previous monument was removed in 2001.
Ken Lewis said his atheist group would bid against Myler's company if the commissioners endorsed Myler's proposal.
The process should be legal to permit the commandments monument, Myler company officials said, because freedom of speech can be exercised on private property.
Several county officials received an e-mail last week from Lewis, who wrote that his group wanted to erect a monument reading "Freedom from Religion."
Lewis told the Crawfordsville Journal-Review that an anonymous benefactor has pledged money to outbid Myler if the commissioners decide to put the land up for sale.
Lewis said he lives in Colorado and that he learned about the proposal from news reports. He said the group was interested in opposing Myler "because we strongly believe in the separation of church and state."
Myler said he expected a bid for the property from an atheist organization.
"The people in the Myler organization believe that Christians in Montgomery County and across the country will join us in raising enough money to assert our Christian rights to display the Ten Commandments on a lawn that we as taxpayers pay for anyway," Myler said.
A Ten Commandments monument stood on the courthouse lawn in the city about 40 miles northwest of Indianapolis from 1958 until 2001, when the Indiana Civil Liberties Union went to court to have it removed.
The commissioners, acting on the advice of the county attorney, decided not to fight the action and had the monument removed.
If people would interpret and apply laws properly folks wouldn't be tempted to BUY their way out of what they are allowed to do legally.
How's Lewis going to outbid him unless somebody tell him what Myers bid is? Wouldn't that be bid rigging?
"Freedom from Religion."
Isn't that a little like saying "Thou shalt have no religion"?
That's what I'm wondering. Maybe the city could turn this into a cash cow...put up for sale small, useless plots of land and claim that "religious groups" want it to display some religious icon. Then start a bidding war between the atheists and a mysterious "religious group".
> Isn't that a little like saying "Thou shalt have no religion"?
No. It's more like: "Thou shalt have no religion that thou does not want." Who could rationally argue agaisnt that?
> Then start a bidding war between the atheists and a mysterious "religious group".
And then arrest on fraud charges those city employees behind the false claims and/or phony bids of the "religious groups!" Genius! Then the atheists can sue and recieve that land and more as part of the punitive damages.
Hmmmm. Let the speculation begin. This smells like the George Soros/Peter Lewis gang to me. But I wouldn't bet against one of the Hollyweird scumbags who helped Kerry, either. Would it be a public auction, like they do for bank sales and various other liquidations?
Don't forget to shoot the entire city council and burn the entire town down.
How about "Freedom from some speech"?
Isn't that a little like saying "Thou shalt have no religion"?
Yes, it is. There is no such thing as freedom from religion. Unless of course it is commanded that there will be no religion (that is except for the religion of "no-religion").
You can't guarantee the right to freedom of religion and then tell everyone they have to shut up about it!
Now, this buying private property adjacent to public property... I don't know about that. The Ten Commandments have a value beyond the Judeo-Christian religion and are indeed one of the basics of our law. The Ten Commandments probably should be on the public property. The Commandments presense does not violate anyone's rights.
my two cents,
jw
> burn the entire town down
Auto-de-feys aren't my schtick. I leave that to the Inquisitors out lookign for heretics and atheists.
Interesting that opposition to the use of fraud is met with hostility by some...
The ACLU foundation has $133 Million in assets, much of it taxpayer money. I contend that a bidding war would not be the best use of resources at the moment. That would be possibly winning a low-priority battle but losing the WAR. Remember, what is legislated can be (although seldom is) de-legislated.
The good news is that there is much, MUCH going on to thwart the militant atheists....and other things to come soon.
First link below--check out ACLU, People for The American Way and Americans for Separation of Church and State for starters...this is not a cash battle, it is a battle against the "evil devices" of evildoers
Second link below--check out the search for 'devices' and you see WHY the Left MUST have prayer out of schools and government for them to stay in power!
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/3247.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=devices&qs_version=9
> I'm gonna have to start using 'smiley faces'
Perhaps so. Whenever discussions around here mention atheists, the hatred comes out in force.
Your vindictiveness is showing, Mr. Lewis.
> The good news is that there is much, MUCH going on to thwart the militant atheists....
That's fine. Militancy in such matters is not good. But what is being done to thwart the militant theists?
Ben Franklin was a Deist-but even he praised the fact that
in America one rarely came across an atheist.Ben Franklin
praised the fact that our country was one of piety ,and
christian morality.Even Old Ben Franklin would despise those who believe in separation from religion.
Well, Mike Newdow has a plan...so did Karl Marx
Here are some outstanding organizations, for starters....
http://www.aclj.org/OnTheAir/Default.aspx
http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/
http://www.becketfund.org/
http://hslda.org/
http://www.lc.org/ten/index.htm
http://www.pacificjustice.org/
http://www.rutherford.org/
http://www.thomasmore.org/
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