Bingo !
I somewhat agree with you (ducking for cover). Although I’ve seen a few Crosses and memorials that are; most of them are hastily put up and usually never maintained afterwards. They often include plastic flowers and teddy bears, even balloons that after a few months in the weather and being subjected to road grime, look both sad and simply awful. They tend to get picked up after a while by the highway crews or the mowing crews or get plowed away after the first big snow storm around here.
On a side note, I would add that every time I see one of the those “In Memory of (fill in the blank) 19xx to 20xx” window etchings or decals, I notice it is nearly always on a rather late model and expensive vehicle; the model year of the vehicle is nearly always same or one or two years later than the person’s death.
So every time I see one, I don’t think, “Wow, that person really misses their loved one”, rather I think, “I’m sorry you died but I bought this really nice car or truck with the insurance money I got – Thanks! (I know that sounds cynical but that’s what I think when I see them). Of course those are on privately owned vehicles so it really doesn’t matter what I think about them and the vehicle owner is perfectly free to put on their vehicle whatever they want as long as it doesn’t conflict with common decency, i.e. convey an obscenity or convey a false identity (Here I am thinking of states that have refused to issue vanity plates that say something like “FBI” or “FedGov” or “DEA” or “IMACOP” for reasons that should be obvious).
Personally I would never think to or go out of my way to complain about one of those roadside or sidewalk memorials or insist they be taken down but then again, I’m not opposed to them being removed when they become an eyesore or impede the mowing crews or become a nuisance to traffic as some of them do. I find it somewhat interesting that I’ve seen traffic on a busy highway slow down to gawk at a newly erected “memorial” where a person died in some sort of traffic accident where as the distraction of erecting such, could in and of itself be the cause of yet another.
OTOH, driving by a Cross placed along the side of the road, even as being a “non-believer” myself (I hate the word Atheist as I hate the Atheist a-holes as much as I do the PC and Liberal crowd); it in no way offends me. If others find faith and comfort in it, I’m certainly not against it.
But FWIW I also used to live in Baltimore City and would see these “memorials” along sidewalks where some punk gang banger popped a cap in the “you know what” of some other punk gang banger (excuse me while I look for my hanky /s).
I also wonder about some of these road side memorials and whether the person who died at that particular spot of the road was the victim of a drunk, speeding, texting or reckless driver or whether the person who died there WAS the drunk, speeding, texting or reckless driver. While most of us assume that the roadside memorial commemorates the death of some sort of innocent victim, it would be wrong to always assume such, as much as it would be wrong to assume that the dead gang banger was “just a good kid”.
Sorry, but the First Amendment trumps what you believe to be in “disgustingly poor taste.” These memorials are not on private property against the will of the land owner, but are on public land. Sometimes they may be at the corner of an intersection or on the side or the road or just off the sidewalk near a home or hospital where someone died or even sometimes near an abortion mill where thousands have been murdered. Again, it is a First Amendment Right.
No it isn’t. The 1st Amendment says nothing of the kind.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Note the word “Congress” – as that word has meaning and is very important. It was intended to prohibit the Federal government from establishing an official national religion or hindering the free exercise of any religion at the national level or in suppressing both an individual’s or that of any state assembly’s political speech, of a free press even when they report things not complimentary to the Federal government. The 1st Amendment says nothing about anyone’s right to put up a roadside or sidewalk side memorials to a dead loved one on public lands or along Federal highways and it says nothing about whether States or local municipalities have to allow them under the 1st Amendment.
Oliviaforever: I would ask you that if you are such a staunch supporter of the 1st Amendment and think that it carries such a broad interpretation as you seemingly think it does, then I guess you would not be opposed to the Atheist family of an Atheist family member putting up a “roadside memorial” that says, “Heaven and God is a Myth” or a roadside memorial that displays Buddhist or Hindu or Rastafarian symbols or a Shrine to the Virgin Mary. Or are you one of those folks who think that the 1st Amendment only applies to and covers what you believe?