No one else here has yet mentioned this foo-fah-rah that emerged in the Washington state capitol in Olympia, and is spreading to others. Several governors have allowed Nativity scenes to be erected in their Capitol rotundas. In Washington state, the regional atheists got permission to put up an adjacent sign portraying a rationalist viewpoint. Someone then stole the 50 pound sign,and it was later recovered from a ditch and returned.
With the media coverage of this violation, others got into the act. Pleas to the Governor from many other ignored faiths appeared, from the Jews to the satirical Festivus pole and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Then the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas demanded space for a sign (in the Washington capitol dome) that begins “Santa Claus will take you to Hell” and goes on to blame Santa for the bad economy, and child molesting. No fooling. With this, the Governor said, “Enough!” They have stopped the flood, for now.
It is another “shot” in the “War on Christmas”.
Here’s Bill O’Reilly getting schooled in the legal implications:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZTotLErnhw[/youtube]
We can hope that this will help Governors in the future to decide that government buildings are a poor choice for hosting religious displays.
I've been following this elsewhere and, I must say, it's laughable. Of course I knew the righties would get up on their incredibly high mutant robot space-horses, but the foo-fa-rah (damn that's a great word) that's resulted is just slightly beyond what I expected.
These right-wing nutjobs constantly claim to be patriotic – more patriotic than anyone else, in fact – but seem to have completely forgotten the general secular intent of the Glorious Founding Fathers they deify; not only that but they've never even read the first amendment of the freaking Constitution! I think Jefferson et al, were they to meet Billo and the Jesus Gang, would go completely cell-block on their asses.
Further, even, they've missed the entire point of the atheist sign and instead exploded the whole thing into an assault on Christmas, an attempt to destroy it. I dunno…I just don't have the words to describe how mindblowingly retarded Billo and his posse of puritanical, pig-ignorant persecution-junkies are.
Merry Christmas everyone!