Atheist group may bid for plot of courthouse lawn

[truthpusher]

http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/02/01/local.20050201-sbt-LOCL-A1-Atheist_group_may_bi.sto

Atheist group may bid for plot of courthouse lawn
Businessman wants site for Ten Commandments monument.

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- A man who says he represents an atheist group is planning to bid for a small plot of the county courthouse lawn that a businessman has said he wants to buy as the site for a Ten Commandments monument.

Earl Myler, who heads a company that designs and builds churches, has proposed to Montgomery County commissioners a plan to buy the property in order to return a Ten Commandments monument to the lawn, where a previous monument was removed in 2001.

<snip>

Several county officials received an e-mail last week from Lewis, who wrote that his group wanted to erect a monument reading "Freedom from Religion."

<snip>

"The people in the Myler organization believe that Christians in Montgomery County and across the country will join us in raising enough money to assert our Christian rights to display the Ten Commandments on a lawn that we as taxpayers pay for anyway," Myler said.

Story>>>> http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/02/01/local.20050201-sbt-LOCL-A1-Atheist_group_may_bi.sto

[henrik larssonisking]

1. No idea why he thinks his monument

is any less of an infringement than the ten commandments.

[Blue_State_Elitist]

2. It's obviously not meant to be serious...

He is trying to make the madness of the Christian monuments more apparent.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Well see, it's kinda like this.....

The courthouse in question is trying to skirt the first amendment by "selling" a small plot of the courthouse property to a private owner in order to place a religious monument on the property.

The atheist group is using that same tactic against them.

[Modem Butterfly]

4. Free Market Correction in action!

Captialism at its finest!

[Sinistrous]

5. Of course his monument is not an infringement:

Espousing a position that is constitutionally guaranteed, i.e., Freedom from Religion, is the exact opposite of doing the constitutionally forbidden practice using taxpayer resources to espouse a particular religion or its tenets.

[Carl Brennan]

8. The atheist is doing the right thing. ALL public property should

be.....free from religion. In fact I think that the phrase freedom from religion should be placed on ALL public property to remind Americans of the sacred principle of seperation of church and state.


Plus these Christian fascists have enough goddam churches with their fucking bells tolling and their brainwashed flocks of fools.


WE NEEEEED ZONES OF SANITY IN THIS WORLD!!

[Malva Zebrina]

6. good, let other religous or other groups do the same

in order to object to the tryanny of the majority over the miniority.

[henrik larssonisking]

7. so

i take it if your for other groups to set up monuments, then the fundies have as much right.

[tx_dem41]

9. You don't really grasp the whole idea of irony ....

do you?

[Malva Zebrina]

10. No, I meant let them all bid for the property in question

Let them all put in a bid.

[henrik larssonisking]

11. now that i can get behind.

[Egalitarian]

12. Commissioners should not put the land out to bid

Would they not need compelling reason to sell a tract of public land? I would hope that county commissioners cannot sell public land so easily. What type of powers are commissioners granted in such areas?

[cascadiance]

14. I am also concerned about that factor...

Someone like George Soros might be funding the guy to pay a million or so dollars or more for the property in a bidding war, which would make a nice in your face message to the fundies, but if they see that will push other places to do the same thing (and let other religious communities get rich off of the "bidding process"), then I'm wondering if this is such a good thing.

I would hope most communities wouldn't allow this sort of things to happen to public property.

Maybe to really make a disincentive for the fundies to not do it elsewhere, the guy should come out and say that if he has to pay above a certain amount, that instead of putting up "freedom from religion", he'll put up something even more offensive to the fundies there like a devil worshipper monument or the like. That might make them think twice about trying to try it other places too.

[VegasWolf]

13. This sounds like a cheap ploy to get around the separation issue.

Good for the atheists to drive the cost up, hope they drive
it way up. I am so tired of fundies sticking their stinking
monuments all over the place.