Posted on 05/25/2003 4:39:11 AM PDT by milan
A borough government in Pennsylvania says freedom of speech does not extend to a man's large "Jesus is Lord" sign, threatening the man with jail time if he doesn't remove it, reports the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat.
This is another example of how local ordinances are being used to incrementalyy take away our freedoms. Professioncal planners do tend to be anti-religious (although not merely anti christian) and are working around the country to add ordinances to communities to "preserve their character" and make them "a place people would want to go". They keep trying to engineer the 'perfect' community, and no sign of religion seems to be part of that vision.
While the professionals are pretty careful to not say anything anti-religious where others will hear them, their attitude spreads to the citizens Planning Commisions. Locally, we had a Lutheran church in town that bought the properties next to them, and wanted to expand their parking to accomodate growth. One of the Planning Commisioners apparently forgot he was in a public meeting, and said he didn't think it should be approved because the church was a cancer on the community. This same planning commision denied the Mormons the opportunity to take several rental houses next to a student apartment complex (with 1500 apartments) and replace them with a community center. They usually are glad to replace rental houses with another use, but apparently this particular use, with it's religious tone wasn't desireable to them. At the time we thought it was because they were mormons, but with the lutheran thing, its broader anti-religious theme showed through.
What's my point? All these ordinances being pushed on us by the American Planning Association - Historic Preservation, Open Space Preservation, Sign Ordinances, Village zoning, Overlay zoning, all have the primary intent of taking choices away from us, and putting them in the hands of people who use them to build their utopian community. Once the ordinances are in place, they are being used everywhere to infringe on our right to practice religion freely, our right to own (and control) property, our right to freely assemble, and our right to be free of unreasonable search and siezure (many of these ordinance require that you permit the enforcement officer in to inspect at any time).
We built the greatest country on earth without any of this, without 5-year plans in our communities, without citizens advisory panels for our neighborhoods, and without local inspectors with police powers. All these things that they say will improve our neighborhoods, raise our property values and bring the right kind of people into our communities are nothing more than Trojan Horses for taking away our rights and giving them to government.
This latest example in Bedford is just one more incident in a pattern going on around the country. It's less sympathetic, because the sign is pretty gaudy and annoying, but the same principles are being used to restrict our rights in one community after another, orchestrated by the socialist American Planning Association.
The ACLU guy they spoke with said nothing about driving hazard...which I am not even familiar with the area, but hear it points out over a river. On the other side of the river is a highway. How would that be a driving hazard? Apparently it doesn't face the road on the other side of the building either.
But I perhaps you dont care about someone dying if there is a chance that this one sign is going to bring someone to the Lord or even worse that it interferes with your expression of religion.
Sounds like you may have some issues with Christ yourself.
So what is the problem?
The new name of the shop is "Jesus is Lord".
Or they could be there to protect historic buildings and prevent the downtown from becoming an eyesore.
He can't be bashing Christianity...that doesn't exist. There is no conspiracy, there is no hatred of all things Christian. < / sarcasm>
Our Lord didn't run around breaking city ordinances by posting His Name where every passing Roman army could see it.
He spoke His Name by personal example.
No? So, whipping money changers in the city church wasn't against city ordinances?
There's no question there are people involved in getting historic preservation ordinances through who believe they are doing something to preserve their community. Visions of being the next Williamsburg dance in their heads. Unfortunately, it's a simple fact that every community cannot support itself on historic tourism. If there is no economic growth, or serious employers, no amount of ordinances are going to stop the decline of a town - it's part of the economic cycle. Towns can be preserved better by encouraging growth, allowing creative new uses of existing space, and by letting the invisible hand of the market show us what will make us prosperous.
In Europe, buildings that are 500-1000 years old made it to the 20th century without historic preservation ordinances. They were owned by people who chose to preserve them. That is the principal that should be used for preservation - people and groups that want to preserve building should raise the money to do so. The fact that they are unable to do so on any large scale says that it isn't as popular as they suggest. In order to implement their goals they end up relying on the power of government to do it for them, against the apparent wishes of people who've chosen not to spend their money that way.
Personally, the town I've seen be the most aggressive in this didn't exist at all in 1865. There aren't any truly historic buildings - they feel the need to preserve hundreds of Sears Homes. They say they're trying to maintain a family community in a college town, when in fact the college was there first, and the town grew in response to providing services to the college. They are chasing a vision of something that never existing, and are eager to use the power of government to build their perfect community.
That's where the power ends up, not with reasonable restrictions to preserve something everyone agrees on (like the community raising money to preserve a historic theater), but as a club to keep people in line, and make sure their friends get rewarded for the "right" kind of changes. These ordinances always end up being used on a far greater scale than originally itended, because power corrupts.
Eventhough I agree with your assessment, something bothers me about this, and I think it's the point that the hypocritical ACLU is silent.
It doesn't? Why? In the country formerly known as the United States of America, the burden of proof in this case would be on the government to usurp this man's First Amendment protections. As I recall from law, that is only possible under a fairly narrow set of circumstances (clear and present danger, prior restraint, that sort of thing).
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