Town of New Windsor Threatened over God and Country
The Town of New Windsor, New York, has been threatened over a war memorial which contains the words “To Those Who Served Both God and Country“:
Town Attorney Michael Blythe said the lawyer, Martin Karlinsky, sent the town two letters, suggesting that the wording on the memorial, invoking the word “God,” runs counter to the First Amendment clause that draws a strict separation between government and religion. Blythe said there was a “veiled threat” of a lawsuit.
Apparently unmoved, Town Supervisor George Green had a pithy response to the threat:
Because the meeting was held on the anniversary of the U.S. entering World War II, and that the date is in close proximity to the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Green said his response to Karlinksy mirrored the response U. S. General Anthony McAuliffe sent to a German general in Dec. 1944.
Green’s letter to Karlinsky reads: “Dear Mr. Karlinsky, Nuts. Very Truly Yours, George A. Green.”
When he discussed the letters at a Town Board meeting, Green was more verbose:
“It’ll be a cold day in hell when I’ll submit to taking ‘God’ off that monument,” Green said at the Dec. 7 meeting. “You have our assurance that we will not capitulate in this.”
It seems Martin Karlinsky isn’t even a resident of the town, but apparently drives by the monument on occasion.
Over the past few years, attacks on memorials or monuments that have the slightest reference to or association with religion have been heavily targeted by militant secularists who appear to scour the country for things over which to be offended.
No rational person can honestly understand the context within which the Founders wrote the US Constitution and its First Amendment and continue to sincerely believe it was their intent to ban the word “God” from a public monument. Religious freedom is a good thing; the same liberty that prevents the US government from imposing a religion also prevents the US government from scrubbing public society of any references to religion.
Some people are more concerned about being offended by God, however, than they are in America’s First Liberty.
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I will say it again, though I know it will go in one atheist ear, and out the other.
The “Wall of Separation between Church and State” had nothing to checking one’s faith after they leave their home. It had everything to do with preventing the formation of a state-religion in the same vain as the Church of England.
The Founding Fathers would NOT support today’s atheist community because they’d never believe that saying “God Bless You” after a sneeze is a Dominionist attack! Heck, they even disavowed Thomas Paine after he started spouting anti-religious bigotry of a similar vain as Richard Dawkins today!
Lastly, if atheists are so “rational” they should start realizing that their reactionary attacks against the mention of God on memorials is completely irrational.