A cross they don’t want to bear

On the discussion Web site Plastic, some evidence that atheists have their own annoying fundamentalists too:

A state historical landmark in Ventura, California recently came under threat from a group of self-proclaimed atheists and agnostics. Apparently this group of citizens have become incensed about a 90-year old cross that sits above the city in a public park. Similar situations have occured elsewhere in California.

The current cross was put in place 90 years ago when the previous cross had rotted. Local historians claim that the original cross had been put in place in the same location over 200 years ago (1782) by a Spanish Priest, Father Junipero Serra. The cross served as a guide to mariners to identify where the city and one of Father Serra’s missions were located.

The group’s claim is, of course, that the cross represents a violation of separation of church and state. Some may feel, however, that it is the duty of the state to maintain it, or any other significant landmark, even if the landmarks have religious implications to any group. City attorneys fear fighting the legal actions of the group will cost the city a million dollars and ultimately fail to save the cross based on similar decisions by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Their solution may be to sell the portion of the park which holds the cross to a private organization to maintain.

I suspect that many of these pointless busybodies protested the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddha statues at Bamiyan (of course not, that’s different).

My own personal feeling is that while the government shouldn’t endorse any specific religion or go about erecting religious symbols, it should maintain sites of historical significance. I think a more reasonable way to view the cross is as a historical artifact that just happens to be a religious significance for some people.

Besides, if you really wanted to take down symbols of oppression, you’d dismantle all those statues of dead white male racist-sexist-homophobic-didn’t-sort-their-recycling-properly-oppressor-pig-dogs.