 A giant cross on display at a Pensacola park is now at the center of a new lawsuit.<p>Two groups outside of Florida said the universally recognized symbol of Christianity sits on city property.<p>They argue it violates the first amendment rights of non-Christians.<p>The American Humanist Association and Freedom from Religion Foundation wants the cross removed.<p>By doing so, they hope those who have unwelcomed contact with the cross can go to the public park without any problems.<p>Rob Looper, senior pastor at McIlwain Presbyterian Church, looked over an 18 page lawsuit filed by four Pensacola residents against the city of Pensacola.<p>The group claimed a 25-foot Latin cross at Bayview Park violates their constitutional rights of separation of church and state.<p>)
Looper's church has used the site for Easter services. Posted on 05/05/2016 10:27:13 AM PDT by Red Badger
Looper's church has used the site for Easter services.
Looper said, "We don't need the cross to have that service. He planned on being there again this year but apparently the gentleman connected to the lawsuit who lives here secured that area for himself; apparently to prevent us from being able to use it."
The cross is located on the northeast side of Bayview Park.
Since the park is public, some want it taken down.
They want people from all religions to feel comfortable going to the park.
Monica Miller, senior counsel for the American Humanist Association said, "These citizens do feel that this is a government promotion of religion in their own community and it does make them feel like outsiders, and that the government prefers, their government specifically, prefers Christian citizens to non-Christian citizens."
Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward said the city respects all religions and will be looking into this issue.
"I think this question is less about what I think and about what the community thinks," Hayward said. "I remember when this issue came up last year, citizens mobilized in a big way on social media and publicly and calling city hall, so I think this is an issue that's a hot button for many of our citizens that live here in the city of Pensacola."
Hayward believes the lawsuit is unfortunate.
Also, Looper hopes the community gets a say into what happens to the Bayview cross.
"Because this is a public park and it's public property then the public people should have the voice over what needs to be done about that not a special interest group or an individual," Looper said.
Miller said this issue is less about the cross and more about the government endorsing a specific religion.
The AHA is also asking for a declaration that the city violated the Establishment Clause of the first amendment and attorney fees.
The site has been, in previous years, been reserved by church groups for Easter sunrise services. But THIS year, a left wing atheist reserved it for himself to keep them from using it...........
“They want people from all religions to feel comfortable going to the park. “
I am uncomfortable around burka and bomb wearing, stinking mudslimes or freeloading illegals, but i still have to let them in my country.
Please show me where the separation of Church and State is in the Constitution.
So perhaps it could be set up as a base upon which the cross (or any other physically compatible sculpture) can be erected and then taken down when desired. I think the purpose of the cross has been perverted. It shouldn’t say “Look how great we are” (and then madly defended that way) but “Look what a great gift the Lord gave.” And if someone doesn’t want to hear about the latter, then don’t push it using property that isn’t yours. That account is between them and the Lord.
And he would be a militant evangelical atheist, forcing others to comply with his belief system.
Well if the put up a crescent, it’d be protected. Right?
Court interpretation of “establishment of religion” has expanded to embrace generic Christianity, which it didn’t use to.
However the separation of church and state is implicit in the bible, until the second coming of Christ (and even then I ain’t sure that He will require states to be churches, or simply to follow Noahide rules). Christianity wan’t given to be theocratic; men made it theocratic and had to Calvinball the rules for doing so because it was never envisioned in the bible.
A few years ago there were internet stories going around about a large cross on a mountain in Syria that ISIS or AQ were going to destroy. The Russian Orthodox entered the picture and with Putin defended the cross and dared the rebels to touch it. As far as I have heard I the cross is still here.
Since Christians are physically and psychologically unable to fight their religion will be reduced to ineffectiveness in this world. As an aside the attack on the Christian religion is part of the general attack on the Western World and the West is losing the war.
Meanwhile Boston hangs a transgender pride flag over City Hall........
Why are so many atheists such JERKS!!?
[[Why are so many atheists such JERKS!!?]]
Because the ones that are jerks are absolutely miserable people on the inside- angry bitter people- who’s sole goal in life is to attack God through His people
Even Demons know God exists, and they at least have the sense to tremble- Atheists who are angry don’t even have that much sense apparently- (Note, not all Atheists are hateful jerks- but many it seems seem to be-)
Only Congress can violate 1st Amendment protections.
The rest of the material in this thread shows how anti-Catholic activist justices destroyed the Founding States’ intention for 1st Amendment-protected religious expression.
From a related thread …
Since this post is a little long, consider that the first part of this post is a summary of 10th Amendment (10A)-protect state power to address religious issues. The second part of this post explains how those powers were stolen from the states by FDR’s activist justices imo.
To begin with, note that the Founding States had decided that the states did not have to respect the rights protected by the Bill of Rights which the states drafted and ratified. Only the feds had to respect those rights. So regardless that the Founding States had made the 1st Amendment (1A) in part to prohibit the power to make religion-related laws entirely to the feds, the states still had the 10A-protected power to make such laws.
But when the states later ratified the 14th Amendment (14A), that amendment ratified under very questionable circumstances, the states obligated themselves to likewise respect any rights that they amend the Constitution to expressly protect.
And it remains that 1A still prohibits the feds from making religion-related laws.
But whereas the states have always had the 10th Amendment-protected power to legislatively address religious issues, that power is now limited, but not prohibited, by the 14th Amendment as the drafters of that amendment had intended for it to be understood.
The above material was the first part of this thread, explaining that the originally unchecked power of the tates to officially address religious issues is now limited by the 14th Amendment.
The material below was borrowed from a related thread and attempts to explain how 10A-protected power of the states to legislatively address religious issues was stolen by FDR era, state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices imo.
Protestants evidently brought their religious civil war with Roman Catholics from England to the USA, Irish Catholic immigrants the biggest target of Protestant lawmakers in the 19th century. This is evidenced by the following book authored by Philip Hamburger.
Philip Hamburger: The Separation of Church and State
Anti-Catholic, state sovereignty-ignoring justices of the FDR era evidently wrongly allowed their bias against Catholics to affect case decisions. The following material provides more details of the events that led to outcome-driven decisions, imo, by the Supremes in cases dealing with 10A-protected state power to address religious issues.
To begin with, let’s examine how FDR’s activist justices misrepresented Thomas Jefferson and his "wall of church and state separation" with respect to the Founding States' intentions for 1A’s prohibition on Congress’s power to regulate religion.
In stark contrast to what FDRs activist justices evidently wanted everybody to think about “atheist” Jefferson’s "wall of separation," it turns out that the real Thomas Jefferson had explained that the states had made the 10th Amendment (10A) in part to clarify that the states had retained uniquely to themselves the power to address religious issues, regardless that the states had made 1A in part to prohibit such powers entirely to Congress.
"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that -the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people-: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed [emphasis added]; …“ — Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798 .
Although 14A later expressly applied only the Constitutions privileges and immunities to the states, FDR’s anti-state sovereignty justices argued that 14A also applied 1A’s prohibition on Congress’s power to make religion-related laws to the states.
"The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws [emphasis added]. The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect.” --Mr. Justice Roberts, Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 1940.
But two things that FDRs activist justices wrongly ignored concerning their statement in Cantwell are as follows. First, the congressional record shows that Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of 14A, had clarified that 14A did not take away state powers.
"The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights [emphasis added] that belong to the States.” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of first column)
"No right [emphasis added] reserved by the Constitution to the States should be impaired …” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See top half of 1st column)
"Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State [emphasis added]? God forbid. I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existence.” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of third column)
Based on Bingham’s clarification that 14A preserved state powers, the states still had the 10A-protected power, as Jefferson had indicated, to make religion-related laws, although such such laws are now limited by 14A.
In fact, Justice Reed had noted that it was the job of judges to balance 10A-protected state powers with 14A protected rights.
"Conflicts in the exercise of rights arise and the conflicting forces seek adjustments in the courts, as do these parties, claiming on the one side the freedom of religion, speech and the press, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and on the other the right to employ the sovereign power explicitly reserved to the State by the Tenth Amendment to ensure orderly living without which constitutional guarantees of civil liberties would be a mockery.” —Justice Reed, Jones v. City of Opelika, 1942.
But a more powerful example of evidence of wrongdoing by FDRs thug justices concerning their stifling of 10A-protected state power to legislatively address religious issues, such power evidenced by the Jefferson excerpt above, is the following.
Based on the language in the Cantwell excerpt above, FDRs justices essentially used their PC interpretation of 14A as an excuse to effectively create a fictitious constitutional amendment that prohibits the states from making religion-based laws, just like 1A prohibits Congress from making such laws.
Consider that such an amendment to the Constitution might read in part as follows.
"No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; . . ."
But here is the clincher regarding the Court’s dishonest application of 1A-prohibited religious power to Congress to the states via 14A. Several years after the ratification of 14A (1868) Representative James Blaine pushed for an anti-Roman Catholic amendment to the Constitution (1875) that began with the exact wording that the ”hypothetical” wording above that FDRs thug justices seemingly based their statement in Cantwell on.
"No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations."
But what FDR’s anti-Catholic justices most certainly did not want citizens to know concerning their tortured interpolation of 14A in Cantwell, claiming that it applied 1A’s prohibition on religious laws to Congress to the states, is this. The pre-17th Amendment Senate had failed to pass Rep. Blaine’s proposed amendment in the Constitution’s Article V amendment process. By not passing the proposed Blaine amendment, the Senate discredited the Court’s later interpolation of 14A in Cantwell imo, that interpretation ignoring that 14A did not take away state powers as Bingham had officially clarified.
"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808.
The bottom line is that there is basically nothing unconstitutional about a Christian cross on state public land regardless of gossip, rumors and hearsay concerning separation of church and state. It’s basically up to the locals to decide if they want the cross there imo.
Insights, corrections welcome.
Compared to trees, telephone poles and street lights behind the cross in the picture, the cross really isn’t that big imo.
It’s part of their religion; I believe it’s a Commandment:
“Thou shalt be an asshole.”
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