ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
Funny how the ACLU grounds their threats of lawsuits in the alleged offense to 1 person’s sensibilities, yet they are oblivious to how insensitive it is to ask Christians to throw a blanket over the Cross.
You can read the full story on Fox News here, but since I’m a local to this area, please let me give you the Jersey Shore insider’s perspective.
Ocean Grove is an unincorporated part of the larger Neptune Township lying next to the Atlantic Ocean, immediately south of my beloved little City, Asbury Park.
All the land is owned by a Methodist group called the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, who also founded it back in 1869. You political folks may be familiar with the President of the Camp Meeting Association – Scott Rasmussen, erstwhile ruler of ESPN and current head of the polling company Rasmussen Reports.
The group describes their founding as follows:
Shortly after the Civil War, in the late 1860’s, a group of God’s people set off on a search “to find a suitable place to fulfill their dream that God should have a place for a church by the sea where His children could gather and reap physical, mental, and spiritual benefits.” After searching the Jersey shore, Ocean Grove was selected by its founder, Dr. William Osborn, for its high beach, thick grove of pine, cedar and hickory trees, and the absence of disease-bearing mosquitoes. Natural boundaries were determined by two lakes and the ocean.
NO MOSQUITOES!!!
I testify to you today that it is a bucolic little beach town full of Victorian architecture, although I abstain from joining the mosquito-free claim.
This is a decidedly Christian place. You’ve heard of “blue laws” where stores stay closed on Sundays? When I was a boy, Ocean Grove went them one better: The gates to the town were closed shut on Sundays. You couldn’t drive in or out. They’ve long ago lifted those restrictions.
Despite its Christian aesthetic, Ocean Grove has always been open to revelers and consorts of all types. It is, after all, a beach town that thrives on tourism.
The center of this town is a huge but humbly beautiful structure called the Great Auditorium, as seen in the pictures I’ve attached. It seats 6,500.00 people.
Note two things very well. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association is a private ministry, not the Methodist Church. It is governed by 10 clergy and 10 lay people. The Great Auditorium is not just a place of worship (although you can feel free to worship there no matter what your religion). It hosts secular events as well as religious events. In fact, the last time I was there was to see Bob Newhart in concert. He was drop dead funny. He told a joke so funny, with a certain evangelical preacher as the butt of it, that I’ll never forget it.
Some of the performers you can catch there this summer don’t bring to mind Methodist worship: Herman’s Hermits, Peter Noone, Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees, Tim Conway, Tony Bennett, Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra Jr.
Although, I must admit listening to Tony Bennett is kind of a religious experience.
Neptune Township is populous enough that their High School graduation requires seating for 3,000. As you might guess, the only venue in Neptune large enough to fit that many people is the Great Auditorium.
Even though the ceremony has been there for 70 years, last year one woman, who doesn’t even live there, complained to the ACLU that she felt like an outsider at graduation because of the Cross on the building.
I have news for her: She was an outsider. She traveled to a Christian part of town from outside. What nerve she has to think that 140 years of Christian and secular tradition needs to change because she graced us with her presence for 3 hours.
The Cross, by the way, was donated by Woody Allen after he filmed the movie Stardust Memories there.
Based upon the outsider’s complaint, the ACLU has been badgering Neptune Township to cover up the Cross during graduation, as well has America’s two oldest electric signs, which say “Holiest to the Lord” and “So Be Ye Holy.”
I’m not happy that Neptune has already folded to one of the ACLU’s demands: The band will no longer play “Onward Christian Soldiers.” It was more about tradition than religion after 70 years.
Here’s what I hope. I hope Neptune tells the ACLU to pound sand on the beach. I’ve had experience with New Jersey’s ACLU in the past, and know that they are often broke. They will threaten the lawsuit but not bring it for lack of funds. That’s what happened 20 years ago when they threatened the beautiful little beach town of Spring Lake, NJ for having a life sized Crèche at Christmas.
The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Ground Association is no stranger to this sort of attack. In 2007 you may recall it made national headlines when two lesbians were denied the right to have their civil union ceremony in the Camp Meeting Association’s boardwalk pavilion. They sued because straight couples were allowed to rent it for their weddings. That controversy became moot because the Association stopped doing weddings there altogether.
I pray, that’s right - openly and publically pray - that this issue ends differently.
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
How is it Muslims are exploited by a Left-endorsed political ideology (Islamism), while simultaneiously Christians are persecuted by Left-endorsed secularists?
How does the left live with such cognitive dissonance, anyway? You can't encourage religious exploitation and secularist oppression at the same time. At the very least you have to choose one or the other.
Jun '10
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
"What nerve she has to think that 140 years of Christian and secular tradition needs to change because she graced us with her presence for 3 hours."
Indeed.
Here we go again.....Ocean Grove is a lovely little town. I was lucky enough to spend a few summer vacation weeks there with my grandmother as a child & several cousins have bought summer homes there because it is so darn quaint. The auditorium is lovely & I've been there for huge handbell concerts that seem to be a Methodist specialty. Trying to ban visible Christian symbols from Ocean Grove would be like tying to ban Guinness from Dublin.
The ACLU would have a fit if they saw the music program from the spring concerts at my town's public high school. The Last Words of David by Randall Thompson, Ubi Caritas by Maurice Durufle, Mendelssohn's Verleih uns Frieden just to name a few. When Americans United for the Seperation of Church and State were called to town by a crank who wanted Baby Jesus taken down from the town's oval, our mayor said "Over My Dead Body."
I hope Neptune tells the ACLU the same.
Oct '10
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
Joseph Eagar: How is it Muslims are exploited by a Left-endorsed political ideology (Islamism), while simultaneiously Christians are persecuted by Left-endorsed secularists?
How does the left live with such cognitive dissonance, anyway? You can't encourage religious exploitation and secularist oppression at the same time. At the very least you have to choose one or the other. · May 17 at 2:28pm
Because for the left, it isn't about religion--it's about resentment. Christians are part of the traditional power structure that they want to tear down. Islamists are allies in their quest to tear it down. Thus, no cognitive dissonance.
Jul '10
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
J. D. Fitzpatrick
Joseph Eagar: How is it Muslims are exploited by a Left-endorsed political ideology (Islamism), while simultaneiously Christians are persecuted by Left-endorsed secularists?
How does the left live with such cognitive dissonance, anyway? You can't encourage religious exploitation and secularist oppression at the same time. At the very least you have to choose one or the other. · May 17 at 2:28pm
Because for the left, it isn't about religion--it's about resentment. Christians are part of the traditional power structure that they want to tear down. Islamists are allies in their quest to tear it down. Thus, no cognitive dissonance. · May 17 at 3:21pm
Best, most succinct explanation of the Left/Islamist marriage I've ever seen.
Oct '10
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
I agree with Kenneth. Why are these people still our elites, again?
Jan '11
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
This is plainly about intolerance. The ACLU protecting an individual's right to intolerance is a social perversion. Are there enough ACLU lawyers to pursue justice for every individual's intolerance of one thing or another? It's puzzling that these same bigots argue for a multicultural society - done their way, of course.
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
I remember a Methodist beach town in New Jersey where there were no bars or liquor stores. Just beyond the city limits, however, on the road into town, there was one bar after another. Was that Ocean Grove?
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
Probably, Paul. Ocean Grove is surrounded by party towns like Asbury Park, Bradley Beach, Avon and Belmar.
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
It never fails to to amaze me how intolerant the allegedly tolerant are. And how afraid our institutions have become. I'm sure my astute fellow Riccos have noticed that the signage for any new YMCA structure is now just a "Y". My daughter didn't even know what it stood for. As a non-Christian the idea that I could go and participate in any activity at the YMCA, or YWCA without any sort of religious pressure represented the height of true Christianity.
Jan '11
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
I reject most of the ACLU's premise that any display of religion anywhere is deeply offensive to someone, so it must be banned outright. But that's just a general argument about their agenda.
What's interesting here is that the Methodist hall didn't initiate this. The school came to them. How arrogant it is, therefore, to attempt to hire a religious-affiliated hall, and then have the ACLU threaten a lawsuit about the religious affiliation? The school doesn't have a right to the space. The hall only gets rented if they come to a mutual agreement, and the hall is perfectly within their rights to keep the cross.
A couple years ago, the Obama White House wanted to use a meeting room at Georgetown, but to accept, Georgetown would have to agree to cover up a crucifix. To my dismay, Georgetown agreed to that. That case was different because Georgetown caved before any lawsuit. But it's annoying to see secularists ask religious people to cover up their religion.
She felt like an outsider at a graduation ceremony ... sheesh, good grief!
Sep '10
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
On a lighter note, what was the Newhart joke?
Nov '10
Re: ACLU Wants Cross Covered Up During High School Graduation
I am a practicing Catholic. The sight of the star-and-crescent or the Star of David do not give me the heebie jeebies, and I actually find Hindu art very beautiful. The mindset of someone who is offended by the mere sight of a cross is so foreign to me as to be incomprehensible.
Seriously. When did "separation of church and state" come to mean "no religion, ever, under any circumstances?"
How long until the ACLU tries to sue Los Angeles, San Antonio, Santa Fe, etc. to force them to change their names?