Posted on 10/23/2013 6:08:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
The family of a Colorado preacher’s wife is still fuming after the director of the city-owned cemetery refused to engrave her final resting place with the name ‘Jesus’ because it might offend people. The city eventually reversed course under public pressure.
“We were in disbelief,” said Stacy Adams, the daughter-in-law of Linda Baker. “Who tries to censor Jesus from a cemetery?”
Linda Baker lost her battle with cancer last week. She was the wife of Mark Baker, the pastor of Harvest Baptist Church in Ovid.
Adams said her mother-in-law was passionate about her Christian faith and her family. Her final wish was to have her cemetery marker engraved with the ichthys, a symbol of early Christianity. She also wanted the word ‘Jesus’ written inside the fish.
“At first they told us it wouldn’t fit,” Adams told me. “But after we kept pushing them the cemetery director told us that it might offend somebody. They weren’t going to allow it.”
The family was devastated and asked the cemetery director to reconsider. He refused.
“He said, ‘What if somebody wanted to put a swastika?” she recounted. “My reply was, so what if they do? It’s not my business how they want to be remembered.”
The family then took their concerns to the Sterling city manager – but once again they were rebuffed.
“He refused to work with us,” she said. “He said he would have to take it to the city attorney. They were being difficult.”
She said city officials kept telling them that people would be offended by the name of Christ.
“We weren’t asking for a six-foot neon sign,” she said. “We did not want to put a cross on everyone’s tombstone. It’s a six-inch fish with the name ‘Jesus ‘ on it.”
So the family decided to post their plight on Facebook – and that’s when the city had a change of heart.
“We gave them fair warning,” she said. “We gave them time to do the right thing.”
Sterling City Manager Joe Kiolbasa told 9news.com they would no longer censor religious references on headstones and cemetery markers. He said the cemetery manager made a mistake.
“This gentleman thought it may have been objectionable to someone because of the Christian connotation,” Kiolbasa told the television station. “It will be allowed in the future.”
Adams tells me the family was incredibly distraught and disturbed by the incident.
“As an American and as a Christian, we have this thing called freedom of speech, freedom of expression,” she said. “We weren’t trying to stop anybody from putting anything up. We just wanted the same freedom others have.”
And the cemetery is filled with tombstones that have Bible verses and angels and other religious symbols.
Mrs. Baker’s marker should be finished in the coming days as her family continues the grieving process. But Adams can’t help but wonder who “people are so fearful of one name that they would go to such lengths to try and eliminate it.”
“If it can happen in a small country town like this, it makes you wonder what’s happening in other parts of the nation,” she said.
And I’d like to know who – specifically – would be offended by the name ‘Jesus’ on the grave marker of a pastor’s wife? What kind of malicious, godless, slop-sucking heathen would object to a dying woman’s last wishes?
Stacy Adams raises a valid question.
It’s outrageous that a grieving American family had to fight and cajole a city government to allow them to engage in their Constitutional rights.
The city of Sterling, Colo. owes the family of Linda Baker a sincere apology – and it should probably be delivered from the pulpit of Pastor Baker’s church.
As for the cemetery manager—comparing the name of Jesus to a swastika? Really, sir? My only wish is that on Judgment Day Mrs. Baker is standing at the Pearly Gates watching you explain yourself to Saint Peter.
Not yet! It will get worse.
Exactly. The name Jesus does offend people. We are promised that. So what?
Desecration by omission... another liberal game.
He was being offended for someone he didn’t know existed.
Just curious. . .who was the first person to deny the request, and was this person perhaps a) atheist or b) muslime.
Just asking. . .
So, they don't allow many Hispanics to be buried there, eh?.....................
C) JUST A PLAIN OLD LIBTARD A$$hole.....................
C is the correct answer............
Jesus and the Cross are offensive to people because His Name and symbol boldly state
“nothing you can do will ever be good enough to save you from hell”
‘Jesus’, swastika. Those are exactly the same thing.
Probably. . .most certainly not a Christian of any type.
“At first they told us it wouldn’t fit,” Adams told me. “But after we kept pushing them the cemetery director told us that it might offend somebody. They weren’t going to allow it.” The family was devastated and asked the cemetery director to reconsider. He refused. “He said, ‘What if somebody wanted to put a swastika?” she recounted. “My reply was, so what if they do? It’s not my business how they want to be remembered”....[Sterling Colorado] City Manager Joe Kiolbasa told 9news.com they would no longer censor religious references on headstones and cemetery markers. He said the cemetery manager made a mistake.
Ping for later
Obama made certain that Osama(’s double) got full rights,
as did the switched remains of US veterans KIA,
cursed before their families by Obama’s chosen Imam.
Wait for the day when all the gravestones with any Christian or Jewish acknowledgement are taken down. Most before the 1930s had scripture on them or references to the Lord and heaven. All the stones of our military will have the crosses and star of David removed.
This is why this country is done for. Liberals and illegals infesting virtually every part of this country.
Their first inclination and duty is not ‘work’; it is in infecting all levels of government and the rule of law to rid their sensibilities of God, Christ, Jesus, Patriotism, Sovereignty and Honor. Atheists, Muslims, Agnostics and Humanists all.
Their allegiance is to evil, nothing more.
As I repeatedly point out to those I know of either no religion, or a non Christian religion, if they think this has nothing to do with them, they are very much mistaken. After the state is done with the “offensive” Christians, they will be next.
But, as always, they are stupidly clueless.
What’s with Townhall asking for your facebook id to sign in and keeping your contacts, birthdays, etc???? Yikes!
Seems like the city should not be in the business of owning cemeteries, except maybe for the burial of indigent or paupers or whatever the terminology is.
The underlying problem here is government intrusion into religious *sacraments*. Unless religions put their foot down and reject government involvement, they will discover themselves entirely co-opted by government.
Marriage has been taken away from religion (and corrupted) by government. As has the registration of birth, now by the government instead of churches. Now burial is being taken away (and as this article notes, they are trying to corrupt it).
Government *definitely* wants to involve itself with confession (”Or else the terrorists win!”), by monitoring what is said directly, or at least by being able to legally coerce priests, pastors and ministers to break the privacy of the confessional (like the government broke doctor-patient privacy with the HIPAA Act (thank you, W. Bush)).
I imagine also that administering last rites to the dying will be taken away from clergy, likely because of euthanasia. Since murderous medical people can kill at the time of their choosing, they will choose to do so, involuntarily, when there are no witnesses around, especially clergy.
I just wonder how the government will try to horn in to the rites of Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist?
I don’t believe so.
There are only two “sides”, Christ vs all who oppose Him.
The other “religions” are supported by the left because they are on the same side of this dichotomy.
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