{"id":18038,"date":"2012-06-08T01:30:58","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T04:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=18038"},"modified":"2012-06-03T22:44:55","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T01:44:55","slug":"atheists-demand-jesus-come-down-from-montana-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/08\/atheists-demand-jesus-come-down-from-montana-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheists Demand Jesus Come Down from Montana Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The aptly named Freedom From Religion Foundation has demanded that the “Big Mountain Jesus” be torn down, because it resides on (leased) US government land.\u00a0 Interestingly, it has a military connection: It was raised by the local Knights of Columbus in honor of the 10th Mountain Division:<\/p>\n

They call him Big Mountain Jesus: a six-foot statue of Christ, draped in a baby blue robe and gazing out over the majestic Flathead Valley from his perch along a ski run at the Whitefish Mountain Resort in Montana.<\/p>\n

He has been there for more than 50 years, erected by the local Knights of Columbus chapter in honor of the soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division who told of seeing similar shrines in the mountains of Italy during World War II.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Knights of Columbus have asked, naturally, to intervene in the case<\/a> between the FFRF and the Forest Service.\u00a0 Even the local resort manager saw the historical value of the statue beyond religion:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a historical monument unique to Big Mountain. Trying to erase that history, just because you have a different belief system, is wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The FFRF doesn’t seem to care<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a no-brainer,\u201d said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the group. \u201cA violation doesn\u2019t become less egregious because it\u2019s gone on a long time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not a violation, of course.\u00a0 The US Constitution does not prohibit the US government from leasing land to an organization — as it did with the local ski resort.\u00a0 In fact, targeting the lease because <\/em>of the religious viewpoint expressed on the land would violate the heart of the Constitutional protection of religious liberty.<\/p>\n

Then again, if your eyes get hurt thinking about the existence of a Jesus statue, as the FFRF’s apparently have, then the Constitution doesn’t matter.\u00a0 They want the US government to protect them from exposure to religion, even vicarious exposure by mere knowledge or internet photos, even if such actions would violate the Constitution.\u00a0 Not too bright.<\/p>\n

The Becket Fund has said they will oppose the FFRF’s attempts to scrub religious symbolism from the American landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The aptly named Freedom From Religion Foundation has demanded that the “Big Mountain Jesus” be torn down, because it resides on (leased) US government land.\u00a0 Interestingly, it has a military connection: It was raised by the local Knights of Columbus in honor of the 10th Mountain Division: They call him Big Mountain Jesus: a six-foot statue of Christ, draped in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3324,3328,20,459,3325,4,82,3194,1307,2175,3327,2,2508,17,10,3326],"class_list":["post-18038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-10th-mountain-division","tag-annie-laurie-gaylor","tag-atheism","tag-becket-fund","tag-big-mountain-jesus","tag-churchandstate","tag-constitution","tag-ffrf","tag-freedom-from-religion-foundation","tag-jesus","tag-knights-of-columbus","tag-military","tag-montana","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-whitefish-mountain-resort"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}