That Baptist Ain't Right: Edmond, OK & the Jesus Statue

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Edmond, OK & the Jesus Statue

Edmond, OK --- a city with a history of church/state legal woes (click here for article) --- yesterday authorized taxpayer money to purchase a statue of Christ to be placed downtown.

That was yesterday.

Many supporters claimed the statue wasn't religious at all saying it was generic & could be anything/anyone, not necessarily Jesus. The statue is of a man with kids around & arms outstretched, & looks conspicuously like the Americanized version of what Jesus would look like. Oh, yeah, & there is a Bible verse on it that says "Come Unto Me." Don't forget the statue is being placed in front of a Catholic Gift Shop. Sure looks like $3900 of tax payer money was supporting a certain religion. Somebody please tell me if the pic doesn't look amazingly like the All American Jesus we promulgate here in the US of A?

Amazing, really.

[AU's Barry] Lynn said using public funds on the project is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution.

"You cannot promote what is obviously a very specific religious image using tax dollars," Lynn said. "The city lawyers should have stopped this. This isn't even close to the line. This is way over it."

Edmond's city attorney, Stephen Murdock, said, "I think there are differences of opinions regarding that issue." He declined to say what his recommendations were to the commission.

A few years ago, the city faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees after losing a case involving a cross in the government seal, according to the AP report quoted above. Oddly enough, the same stunt was almost done a few years ago when public outcry finally halted a $17,500 taxpayer outlay of a statue of Moses.

But, today, cooler heads have prevailed. The mayor has decided (click here for article) that the tax payer shouldn't be on the hook for anyone's religious iconography. Of course, I'm sure the lawyers had something to do with this --- painfully obvious that a lawsuit would be an expensive loss.

Here's the American's United blog by Sandhya Bathija on the subject.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: To test it, someone should put a statue of Ganesha right next to it. After all, it's just an elephant. Be interesting to see the arguments that would be pulled out on that.; October 17, 2008 at 8:04 AM
Georgia Mountain Man said...: Separation of church and state aside, you'd think that the citizens would have been outraged to see their tax money being spent to publicize a private business. If it had been another statue, you can bet they would have been out in force. Thankfully, the mayor acted, even if it was out of fear, rather than support of the Constitution.; October 17, 2008 at 9:36 AM
foxofbama said...: Thanks for the tip on John Witte at Berry next Thursday at 4 pm.
I may see you there.
You will want to google up the facinating column by Kathryn Lofton of Princeton in Religion Dispatches on the God of John McCain.
I'm looking for a lively discussion at Berry if I make it over.; October 17, 2008 at 4:37 PM

Great Quote List

"The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. ... Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians."
--- John Leland, Colonial Virginia Baptist, "A Chronicle of His Time in Virginia," as cited in Forrest Church, The Separation of Church and State, 92 (2004).

"Religious matters are to be separated from the jurisdiction of the state, not because they are beneath the interests of the state but, quite to the contrary, because they are too high and holy and thus are beyond the competence of the state."
--- Isaac Backus, New England Colonial Baptist, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773.

" 'The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism. Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism.' [Adlai] Stevenson also remarked, 'It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.' "
--- Adlai Stevenson as quoted by TV lawyer Alan Shore on Boston Legal in the courtroom scene "Stick It."

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. . . Our government. . . teaches the whole people by its example. . . If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
--- Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States in the dissenting opinion, later vindicated in Katz v. United States.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and carrying a bible."
--- Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, 1935. (Common spurious attribution, but an oh-so-true statement.)

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.”
--- St Augustine.

"To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death."
---Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, 1963.

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
--- George Carlin (1937-2008) .

"Honesty is not something you flirt with — you should be married to it."
--- Table Top at Joe's Crab House, Aurora, CO.

"It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't."

--- Martin Van Buren.

"The Religious Right is a reminder as to why we have the 1st Amendment --- people can't resist forcing their religious interpretations onto others if others won't willingly acquiesce."
--- TBAR, 07/04/08.

"I'd rather have an honest Atheist in power than a corrupt Christian."
--- Ed Edwards, 09/01/08

“Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse, or loss of property, for his religious opinions....”
--- John Leland, Colonial Virginia Baptist minister and religious liberty advocate, The Rights of Conscience Inalienable, 1791 pamphlet.