Posted on 12/01/2007 7:16:28 AM PST by Rb ver. 2.0
GREENSBORO — There's not much to enjoy about the back of a police car.
But a Greensboro man was particularly offended when he saw a religious slogan posted in the back of a patrol car.
While a deputy was searching M. Reza Salami's car at a sobriety checkpoint last Saturday, the deputy asked Salami to wait in the back of his patrol car, Salami said.
There, Salami, a professor at N.C. A&T, saw a sign reading "Jesus is your savior" between the front and back seats.
Salami complained to the Guilford County Sheriff's Office about the sign and sent a letter to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington nonprofit that works to uphold that separation.
In a letter to the News & Record, Salami said he told the deputy, M. Osborne, and his supervisor, Sgt. J. Sipe, that it was inappropriate to have a religious slogan in a government-owned police car.
Sipe's response was that the sign was acceptable because it expressed Osborne's beliefs, Salami wrote.
Salami could not be reached for comment Friday.
Sheriff BJ Barnes said Salami asked him to apologize for offending him.
"Personally, I hate that this gentleman was offended," Barnes said. "If he is offended by that, then he should choose to ignore it."
Barnes said the sheriff's office doesn't have a formal policy on what personal effects deputies are allowed to keep in their patrol cars, but he supports deputies displaying anything that gives them comfort for 12-hour shifts on a dangerous job.
After Salami's complaint, Barnes asked deputies to confine personal items to the front of their patrol cars, he said.
But even a patrol car's front seat is government property, the wrong place to promote religion, said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke law professor who specializes in constitutional law.
"I think the law is pretty clear that that is not allowed," Chemerinsky said. "This is obviously endorsing a particular set of religious beliefs."
"The officer can put it on his front lawn ... but not in a police car that's used for county business," he said.
Salami, who was ticketed for having an open container of alcohol in his car, wrote to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex Luchenitser, senior litigation counsel for the organization, said it would send a letter to the sheriff's office saying the sign isn't legal.
"A police officer is allowed to keep religious materials in his own personal space, if he's got personal space where he doesn't interact with the public," Luchenitser said.
Barnes said sheriff's employees of all religions are allowed to express their personal beliefs and the issue had never been problematic.
"Religion has never been an issue for us," he said. "I wish this guy would put his energies toward something else."
The issue can be resolved by a cage match between Mr. Salami and Mr. Savage.
Chemerinsky and Salami deserve each other.
I do believe there’s already a better one available for the back of a patrol car:
“Jesus loves you. Everybody else thinks you’re a [jerk].”
“Salami, who was ticketed for having an open container of alcohol in
his car, wrote to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex Luchenitser, senior litigation counsel for the organization,
said it would send a letter to the sheriff’s office saying the sign
isn’t legal. “
Technically maybe not legal...
but works great at smoking out someone that can’t help themselves from
exercising “the crank’s veto”.
No suprise it’s a professor...INtolerant of cultural practices
in the country that has taken him in (probably from Persia/Iran?).
It’s called “A Coming to Jesus Meeting.” Still popular in the South.
““Jesus loves you. Everybody else thinks you’re a [jerk].””
or
“Jesus loves you even though he knows you’re an intolerant and ungrateful @$$hole.”
“M. Reza Salami”
Is he a muslim? (Is the first name “Mohammad”?)
If he’s a muslim, what’s he doing with an open container of alcohol in his car?
Raise a salami? I guess the off-color aspect of his name isn't evident in Farsi.
He thought the cop asked, "What's your game?" .. not, "What's your name?".
The guy was in the car with his ... never mind.......
“If he’s a muslim, what’s he doing with an open container of alcohol
in his car?”
If Persian/Iranian, that’s probably why he’s in the USA.
But that prohibition against alcoholic consumption is a slightly variable
thing in the Islamic world. Tolerated when done by infidels in more secular
locales (Iraq), totally forbidden in many places.
But also booze consumption is (not suprisingly) done in private.
E.g., for years, it’s been said that in alcohol-free Saudi Arabia,
cases of Dewar’s Whiskey are routinely glimpsed being delivered at
homes of some of the royal family.
While the working ex-pats in S.A. usually do “spit on the grave” visit
of the British guy whose indiscrete drinking bouts caused the Saudis
to forcefully ban alcohol consumption by the working infidels
“in the Kingdom”.
ROTF!
Mohammed Reza Salami, Ph.D., PE, Program Director &. Associate Dean for Graduate and Research Programs, Department of Civil Engineering
Funny how they left all this out.
Or did he come to this country to get away from that.
I've been told by folks who've worked there that teh Saudis pretty much treat private drinking by the infidels with a wink and a nod. One guy told me that the cabinets for ex-pat housing sailed right through customs filled with bottles of liquor. And all the homes in the expat compounds had a small tiled room with a drain in the floor -- a brewing room.
News crews in Kuwait during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 brought in bottles of "windex" to keep their cameras clean -- those bottles wire actually filled with grain alcohol with blue food coloring. All the media types would pick a hotel suite, pool their alcohol and throw a party. I'm told some of the print guys were dubious of the windex shooters, but the broadcast folks were used to it.
I'm also told that before the 1990 invasion, the road from Kuwait City to Umm Qasr -- the first Iraqi city across the Kuwaiti border -- was lined with cars every weekend, folks heading there to go bar-hopping. Umm Qasr was basically the Tijuana of Kuwait.I don't know if the cross-border booze trade has resumed yet.
lose the sticker ...
then give salami 200 lashes for an open container /sarc
“a cage match between Mr. Salami and Mr. Savage.”
Joe Savage?
No, Michael Savage, aka Michael Wiener. As in, don't bring a wiener to a salami fight.
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