Atheist’s Comments Reveal Battle Over Mt. Soledad Cross is an Attack On Christianity

RANCHO SANTA FE, CA — For sixteen years atheist, Phillip Paulson, claiming he wants to maintain neutrality between government and religion, has been waging an unrelenting war against the Mt. Soledad Cross that is the centerpiece of the historic Veterans Memorial in San Diego. However, Paulson’s comments on the website of the Atheist Coalition of San Diego reveals his true motivation is hatred for Christianity.

Paulson goes so far as to state; “We need to attack Jesus…” Those comments, followed by vulgar remarks about Christ, God and the Virgin Mary are so crude and offensive that the Thomas More Law Center will not repeat them. However, Richard Thompson, President of the Law Center commented, “These remarks show the plaintiff to be nothing more than a foul-mouthed anti-Christian whose agenda is not to defend the Constitution, but to attack Christianity.”

In the past two weeks, Paulson’s attorney James McElroy has joined his client in making offensive remarks. He recently compared San Diego City Attorney, Michael Aguirre's, retention of Charles LiMandri, a Christian lawyer from the Thomas More Law Center, to represent the City to hiring the Ku Klux Klan to represent the City in a desegregation case.

McElroy has used this highly offensive analogy in his public comments at least three times over a ten-day period. McElroy, who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Southern Poverty Law Center based in Alabama, knows very well just how prejudicial that analogy is to most people. In fact, it was McElroy who previously brought suit in San Diego against Tom Metzger, a convicted white supremacist.

McElroy offended African Americans who attended a September 16, 2005 meeting of the Catfish Club in San Diego when he again likened Aguirre's recent retention of LiMandri, West Coast Regional Director of the Thomas More Law Center, to the hiring of Metzger to represent the City. In fact, LiMandri began his career years ago by working for the San Diego City Attorney's Office and is a Board certified civil trial advocate who has been involved with the case for over a year.

Paulson and McElroy's offensive comments reveal that their motivation has nothing whatsoever to do with their claimed purpose, which is allegedly to maintain "neutrality" between government and religion. Rather, their hate-speech manifests their overt hostility toward religion and their desire to intimidate the opposition into submission. It is now all too clear that Paulson and McElroy are seeking to use the courts to advance their anti-religion agenda, which is strictly forbidden by the Constitution.

School's Religious Pictures Come Down ... Churches' Petition Goes Out

By Jim Brown
September 27, 2005

(AgapePress) - A coalition of churches in a small Illinois county is protesting a decision by a local junior high school to confiscate pictures of Jesus and The Lord's Supper.

Citing legal liability concerns, the Anna School Board [Anna, Illinois] decided to remove the three religious pictures -- two portraits of Christ and a reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" -- from the walls of Anna Junior High School, where they had hung for half a century. The move comes after the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State called on the district to remove the pictures, calling their presence in the school "grossly unconstitutional." Upon advice from its legal counsel, the district complied.

Local churches outraged over the decision are now circulating a petition to get the pictures re-hung. Pastor Al Campbell is president of the Union County Alliance of Churches. "It's time to draw a line in the sand, so to speak, and we are going to do everything we can to get those pictures re-hung," the Methodist pastor says.

School superintendent Bob O'Dell expressed to The Southern Illinoisan his belief that many people in the district were fine with their presence, but that it was obvious someone was not and contacted Americans United, which does not have a state chapter. "Those pictures have been up there 50 years at least," O'Dell said. "We felt the community wanted those pictures to be there."

As for Pastor Campbell, he believes ignorance of the Constitution and anti-Christian bigotry are at play. "There's a misunderstanding around the nation as to the separation of church and state," he asserts. "Separation of church and state was never meant to be used in the way it is being used now. But I do feel like the people that forced this action probably are anti-Christian or atheist."

It is not clear, he adds, whether the letter from Americans United came from someone who is a member of the district or someone who does not even live in the area. "[W]e don't know because they still have never signed the letter," he says, "so we don't know who they are."

Campbell says the Alliance of Churches will present the petition to the Anna School Board at its October 18 meeting.

Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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