The Atheistic Reaction to the Holmen Cross Situation: Predictable.

Predictable, yes, but whose listening to me?

If you’ve been following my blog on this matter you’ve read about the fact that a church and state issue has popped up right in the town that I live in.  A star which has been on private land for some 40 years and could be lit up as a cross during Easter was included in the purchase to obtain land for municipal services.  Naturally, it was only a matter of time before a hyper-sensitive atheist found himself offended.  The village believes they solved the matter by selling the portion of property that holds the star back to the original owner.  This, I am afraid is not the case.

The general outlines of the forthcoming lawsuit can be discerned in this newspaper article that was published today.  That there almost certainly is a lawsuit coming can be seen by reading between the lines of this press release by the American Humanists on the matter.  Consider this quote:

Edwords said further: “This isn’t the first time government has made a maneuver such as this to keep a religious symbol on public property. Humanists have been fighting the same tactic at Mount Soledad in San Diego, California, for nearly two decades. And there are other communities with crosses on public land. These crosses are maintained at taxpayer expense. So now there is a risk that, if this gambit proves successful in the end, communities all over America will duplicate this same faith-based trick. This is why we have taken action to stop it here.”

Edwords, of course, lets slip the same ugly truth that Eric Barnes (the original complainant)… couldn’t hide:   that it was on public property is what supposedly caused the offense yet when the move is made to put it onto private property they aren’t pleased.   With such reasoning on display, can we suppose that after they’ve purged the country of religious symbols on public property that private property might be next?  Clearly what is offensive is the symbol itself, where ever it is.  But note to Mr. Edwords, the whole point of this is that it would not be on public property.  See?

So, the village of Holmen tried to avoid conflict and controversy and a lawsuit but its looking like they’re going to find themselves knee deep in one, anyway.   Instead of a lawsuit that could have achieved something of merit to the whole nation, it looks instead like it will be over mundane questions of fair process.  Nothing like running from a fight so that others can keep getting clobbered by thin-skinned secularists.

It will be very interesting to see how this pans out.