The Freedom From Religion Foundation, whose apparent mission is to scour the public landscape for things over which to be offended, recently told the town of Hondo, Texas, that their welcome sign was unconstitutional.
The City Attorney, Frank Garza, told the “humorless” FFRF what he thought of that, noting first that the sign “clearly” survives the Lemon Test, and, more importantly, no one has been harmed: Read more
Annie Laurie Gaylor, one of two people representing the Freedom From Religion Foundation she co-founded with her husband Dan Barker, is demanding that the city of Hondo, Texas, remove a sign that calls the area “God’s Country”:
This is God’s Country. Please Don’t Drive Through It Like Hell.
Turns out the sign has been around for decades: Read more
Dan Barker, co-president with his wife of their self-founded Freedom From Religion Foundation, has filed a lawsuit against the Chaplain of the US House of Representatives, Patrick J. Conroy, because Barker was denied the opportunity to provide an atheistic “invocation.”
So, to be clear, a person who doesn’t play soccer is suing the soccer coach because he wants to be in the soccer game — but not play soccer.
Makes sense. Read more
The atheist attempt to pull Jesus off the mountain will now to go the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:
The lawsuit was brought by the Madison, Wisconsin-based group the Freedom From Religion Foundation…
Last June, Chief Judge Dana L. Christensen of the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Missoula Division, dismissed the FFRF’s lawsuit.
In a statement regarding the dismissal, Read more
Update: The memorial was approved, though some expect a lawsuit. It seems some in the atheist community are hesitant to criticize the memorial out of fear of being accused of insensitivity or anti-Semitism (a hesitation not seen when the issue is a cross, rather than a Star of David). A commenter on another site had a fairly objective observation:
When symbols are used to represent historical/cultural events, the fact they are religious should not be a sole justification for not using them — only when the intent of the symbol is to promote a religious viewpoint do they become a problem.
In fact, to tell Jewish Holocaust survivors that they cannot be represented by on the most import icons of their internment and murder would be a terrible insult…Jews were forced to wear a Star of David on their exterior clothing to mark them for abuse by the Nazis…
The next logical question, then, is whether a cross can adorn a memorial if its purpose is “not to promote a religious viewpoint.”
Also at Foxnews.
Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, the husband and wife team that make up The Freedom From Religion Foundation, have called on their supporters to fill the gallery in the Ohio State Capitol today as a meeting is held on a proposed holocaust memorial.
The FFRF’s objection? The Holocaust memorial contains a large Star of David, which raises “constitutional concerns.”
Despite the FFRF’s apparent revisionist thinking, Read more
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. 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 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.
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.
The Knights of Columbus have asked, naturally, to intervene in the case between the FFRF and the Forest Service. Even the local resort manager saw the historical value of the statue beyond religion: Read more