A cross that was placed on the helmets of Arkansas State University football helmets to remember two fallen classmates is being removed after anti-Christianists demanded they be removed.
The helmets had the initials of ASU player Markel Owens, who had been murdered in a January home invasion along with equipment manager Barry Weyer who died in a car accident this year.
“My job is to support our players and our coaches in their expression of any type of grief, and that’s what I was doing,” athletics director Terry Mohajir told USA Today Sports. “It is unfortunate, and I am disappointed. However, we’re also going to uphold whatever legal advice we got, and that’s what we did based on the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That’s what we were told we needed to do. So that’s what we did.”
Jonesboro, Arkansas attorney Louis Nisenbaum is the man who wanted to prohibit the players from honoring their fallen classmates and make sure that the Christian emblem was removed from being seen in public.
The virulent anti-Christian group Freedom From Religion Foundation, which strives to remove Christians from society, called the move “great news.”
The governor of Indiana has said he will defend a veterans memorial in a state park that contains a small cross.
“So long as I am governor, I will defend the right of Hoosiers to display this sculpture in Whitewater Memorial State Park as a lasting tribute to the service and sacrifice of all who have worn the uniform of the United States,” Governor Mike Pence said in a statement.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a threatening letter last month to the director of Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources saying that the existence of the cross on the monument was a government endorsement of Christianity.
“I fully support the decision by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to accept the sculpture commissioned by local citizens to honor all who have fallen in service to our country,” Governor Pence said. “The freedom of religion does not require freedom from religion. The Constitutions of our state and nation more than allow the placement of this Hoosier artist’s sculpture on public land.”
Supporters of the cross say if it’s offensive to an atheist just to see the cross there, it’s just as offensive to a Christian or any other people of faith to have no symbols there that endorses an atheistic belief system.
A virulent anti-Christian organization is targeting a veteran’s memorial at an Indiana park because it contains a 14-inch tall cross.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent a letter to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources demanding the removal of the cross from the 8-foot-tall statue located in Whitewater Memorial State Park.
“No secular purpose, no matter how sincere, will detract from the overall message that the Latin cross stands for Christianity and the overall display promotes Christianity,” attorney Rebecca Markert wrote on behalf of the anti-Christian group. “[The cross means] the government only cares about the deaths of Christian soldiers.”
The cross is part of a wooden chainsaw-carved statue that reads “all gave some; some gave all.”
A man who is an Army veteran initially complained about the cross being a part of the tribute.
“I just thought that a memorial to veterans in a veterans’ park didn’t need to be turned into a religious shrine,” Wendell Bias told a local newspaper, despite the fact no worship services have been held at the site.
A federal appeals court has told a group of anti-Christianists that “the cross at Ground Zero” is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
The group American Atheists had demanded the cross be removed because it violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.
“American Atheists contend that the Port Authority and the foundation impermissibly promote Christianity in violation of the Establishment Clause and deny atheists equal protection of the laws by displaying the cross at Ground Zero in the museum unaccompanied by some item acknowledging that atheists were among the victims and rescuers on September 11,” read the opinion.
“American Atheists acknowledge that there is no historic artifact that speaks particularly to the loss of atheists’ lives or to atheists’ rescue efforts … we conclude that American Atheists’ challenge fails on the merits. Accordingly, we hereby affirm the judgment in favor of appellees.”
The president of American Atheists says it’s not fair that a cross is in the 9/11 Museum and his group can’t put up some kind of tribute to atheists, even though the “cross” wasn’t given by any Christian group but rather discovered as part of the debris of the Twin Towers.
“They’re trying to Christianize 9/11 with this cross and it’s not American and it’s not fair,” said David Silverman.
The anti-Christianist group will likely appeal the decision.
The virulent anti-Christian group Americans United for Separation of Church and State is again attempting to have a memorial removed because it has a cross in it.
A war memorial in King, North Carolina featured a Christian flag and a sculpture of a soldier kneeling before a cross. U.S. District Judge James A. Beaty ruled Tuesday there is sufficient evidence for the case to go to trial.
The “plaintiff” in the case is Steven Hewett, who is being represented by Americans United, who claims that the “King’s veterans’ memorial only honors Christian veterans.”
The Christian flag had been removed from the memorial in 2010 after the ACLU and Americans United both made threats against the city. The citizens of the community were outraged that organizations from outside the town were coming in to censor their free speech rights.
The flag was part of a lottery that the town held every year that allowed a veteran to choose what flag flew every week. Citizens United was angry that the majority of the time people chose to fly the Christian flag.
The American Legion as joined the case to defend the statue saying that the cross is a symbol of graves worldwide that thus it is not a violation of the Constitution.
A federal court is telling a group of anti-Christianists to explain why the ground Zero cross is “offensive”, “repugnant” and a violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
American Atheists has been filing suit to have the Ground Zero Cross removed from the National 9/11 Museum in New York. The court has taken a surprisingly skeptical view of the plaintiffs and their claims of being harmed by the mere existence and display of the cross formed when two beams fell on each other during the collapse of the Twin Towers.
“Plaintiffs’ brief should, at a minimum, clarify both the injuries alleged and legal theories relied on to support standing,” the Second Circuit Court of Appeals asked. “Further, to the extent plaintiffs allege that they have been ‘injured in consequence of having a religious tradition that is not their own imposed upon them through the power of the state,’ First Am. Compl. because individual plaintiffs view use of the challenged ‘cross, a Christian symbol, to represent all victims of the 9/11 Attacks’ as ‘offensive,’ ‘repugnant,’ and ‘insult[ing]’ to them as atheists, plaintiffs should explain how such offense states a cognizable constitutional injury.”
The anti-Christian group had claimed in their filing that the cross’s existence alienates anyone who wishes to learn about events at the museum. They also state because the cross is bigger than any other religious artifact at the memorial, it means the government is endorsing Christianity over all other religions.
A group of atheists is trying to force the 9/11 Museum to remove the “Miracle Cross” because they say its existence in the museum violates the Constitution.
The “Miracle Cross” is a 17-foot cross-shaped beam that was found in the rubble of 9/11. The cross was displayed at Ground Zero and many workers on the site considered it a source of comfort and hope in the midst of the death and destruction.
The anti-Christian group American Atheists says the cross is part of religious history, not American history, and says that its existence in the 9/11 Museum that opens in May violates the separation of church and state.
The Museum is on land owned by the Port Authority and financed by taxpayers.
The atheist group says that if the cross is displayed, that his group wants a similar item such as a plaque that reads, “atheists died here too.”
Federal Judge Reena Raggi appeared to be skeptical of the claims by the atheists.
“There are countless cases of museums including religious artifacts in their exhibits and it’s going to be described in a way that talks about the history of the object,” Judge Raggi said. “What is the problem here? An argument has been made that you’re trying to censor history.”
A ruling is expected in several months.