News: ACLU attacks Katrina memorial

[nebula]

ACLU questions hurricane memorial

Aug 7, 2006 03:50 PM EDT

CHALMETTE, La. (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union is objecting to plans for a hurricane memorial in St. Bernard Parish that will feature a cross bearing a likeness of the face of Jesus.

In a letter to the parish, Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Joe Cook said the plan violates the constitutional standards of church-state separation because the memorial would be located on a public waterway. Cook asked the parish to erect a religiously neutral symbol.

But Parish President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez said he sees nothing improper about the memorial, which will be mounted near the shoreline of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet at Shell Beach.

The cross and accompanying monument listing the names of the 129 parish residents who died in Hurricane Katrina will be put on private land and are being financed with donations, Rodriguez said.

The Parish Council voted several months ago to erect a monument, but at the time did not offer specific plans. The parish recently announced plans to dedicate the memorial on Aug. 29, the one-year anniversary of hurricane.

The stainless steel cross will be 13 feet tall and seven feet wide and will be lighted.

Rodriguez and others like the idea of putting the monument along the banks of the MRGO, because that waterway, dug by the federal government as a shipping shortcut in the 1960s, is widely blamed for much of the deadly flooding that accompanied Hurricane Katrina.

Over the years erosion has widened the outlet, so the bank on which the cross will be erected is on privately owned land, Rodriguez said.

The ACLU believes a storm memorial is appropriate, but the parish's plan is "still all very questionable," Cook said.

"I think there is official government involvement with the endorsement and advancement of this clearly religious symbol," Cook said.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

AP-NY-08-07-06 1351EDT

Source

[billie]

If it's private land, it's none of the ACLU's business. Boy, those people are nervy!

[nebula]

Their loophole is that goverment officials gave donations to the memorial -

Even if it was from their own pockets.

[refugepsa91]

Outside our town...on the way to the city just when farmland starts to get scarce...one of the last farmers fields on this route has a huge cross in it with a white cloth wrapped around it and a sign in front of it that says "He is risen"

I always have in the back of my mind wonder if anyones complained...its on a main highway...but its still private land.

Love and Blessings,

Angel

[billie]

Good idea, Butero. I'm in on that....

[apothanein kerdos]

Considering this quote from their founder it should come as no surprise.

[apothanein kerdos]

Their loophole is that goverment officials gave donations to the memorial -

Even if it was from their own pockets.

You have got to be kidding me.....

[billie]

Oh my gosh, AK, that's crazy! I wonder how many people actually know about that! That's wild!

I mean what that guy said....

[tah]

Considering this quote from their founder it should come as no surprise.

Hummm...he must get along with the Hollywood crowd just fine...

I thought the ACLU meant Anti Christian Liberties Union..oops...I had it wrong...

[nebula]

Their loophole is that goverment officials gave donations to the memorial -

Even if it was from their own pockets.

You have got to be kidding me.....

That's what they said on the news this morning - Fox & Friends.

Needless to say, they expressed outrage - "What's next, you can't wear a cross in public?"