The Mojave Cross was stolen last week and we still don’t know who did it.
Someone claims to know who did it and sent a letter to the Desert Dispatch on behalf of the thief.
Among the many points made in the letter:
1. The cross in question was not vandalized. It was simply moved. This was done lovingly and with great care.
…
11. Despite what many people are saying, this act was definitively not anti-Christian. It was instead anti-discrimination. If this act was anti-Christian, the cross would not have been cared for so reverently. An anti-Christian response would have been to simply destroy the cross and leave the pieces in the desert.
…
13. If an appropriate and permanent non-sectarian memorial is placed at the site the cross will be immediately returned to [the person who originally erected the cross] Mr. [Henry] Sandoz.
I don’t care that the cross should never have been put there in the first place. If it’s an atheist doing this, he doing something wrong — this isn’t the way he should be going about the situation. (Though I know some of you disagree.)
Atheist Alliance International is doing something positive about all this, though.
First, they condemned the thief’s actions:
“Damaging and the taking of another’s property is, of course, reprehensible behavior and not to be condoned,” stated AAI president Stuart Bechman. “AAI certainly condemns that action.”
They also offered to raise $5,000 for a new (all-inclusive) memorial if the old one were to be replaced:
“However, given the controversial nature of this memorial and the tens of thousands of dollars spent in court, we call on all parties to take this unexpected opportunity to consider replacing the monument with a more-inclusive memorial that all Americans can support, and to place that memorial in a more appropriate place that reflects on the soldiers for whom the memorial is to honor.”
Atheist Alliance International pledges to raise $5,000 towards an effort to replace the missing memorial with a new memorial that doesn’t raise First Amendment issues and that would be relocated to a private site within urban boundaries that has some connection to either the war or the soldiers that died in it.
It’s a smart move by AAI and a generous offer — strategic, too, considering I doubt it’ll be taken up.
(via LA Atheism Examiner)
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