A 14-foot-tall Christian cross in a Santa Clara (California) public park is no longer there thanks to atheists who fought the illegal promotion of Christianity.
This past April, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, along with resident Andrew DeFaria, filed a lawsuit claiming that the cross represented an illegal government endorsement of Christianity. (As if it would represent anything else.) It had been donated to the city by the Santa Clara Lion’s Club in 1953.
The lawsuit only happened after FFRF had contacted city officials more than a dozen times over the past few years alerting them to the problem. It wasn’t fixed, so they took the issue to court.
That’s when the city council must have weighed their options, only to realize the law wasn’t on their side. Yelling the word “tradition” wasn’t going to do them any good.
That’s why they settled with FFRF and DeFaria, taking down the commercial for Christianity and donating it to Santa Clara University, a private Jesuit school.
“Some people feel like we’ve caved in or succumbed to the arguments of a relatively small number of people, but as I said, they do have a number of legal precedents on their side,” councilmember Teresa O’Neill said.
Damn right the precedents are on our side. Maybe if the council had paid more attention to all those letters from FFRF, they would’ve realized that years ago. Either way, they finally did the right thing… but only after their hand was forced.
(Thanks to Brian for the link. Portions of this article were posted earlier)
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