Posted on 11/24/2011 1:05:28 PM PST by Ranald S. MacKenzie
Cross Removed From San Antonio Tower
By Brittany Smith | Christian Post Reporter
It was a small cross, but it has created a big debate in San Antonio.
The “Torre de Esperanza,” or Tower of Hope, stands close to the entrance of Texas A&M University-San Antonio. The tower’s private owners put a small cross on the structure consistent with its Spanish mission-style design. They also allowed the school to put its seal on the structure. The cross, however, was recently removed.
The ACLU of Texas said the developer of the tower, Ralph Lampman of the VTLM Group, ordered the crosses removed after a TAMU-SA faculty member complained about the religious symbol. Criminology professor Sissy Bradford questioned the placement as a First Amendment violation.
Associate Vice President for University Communications Marilu Reyna told The Christian Post that she and university President Maria Hernandez Ferrier will speak with the owners of the property to see why the cross was removed. Reyna says the tower “doesn’t belong to the university. It’s on private property.” The Verano Land Group authorized the VTML group to build the tower on their property.
Reyna also told The Christian Post that the university had no say as to whether the cross was removed, but there have been misconceptions over the university’s ownership of the tower because its seal is on it.
Originally, the builders of the tower asked if the San Antonio campus wanted to display their seal on the structure. The initial designs shown to university officials did not contain the image of the small cross, so the university was not aware of it until it was built.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas became involved when they filed public information requests. They want clarification from the City of San Antonio and Texas A&M as to who paid for, designed, and owns the tower the land it sits on.
“The Christian symbol of a cross positioned near the TAMU-SA seal on a building that is the gateway to a public university raises First Amendment concerns,” said Public Policy and Advocacy Director with the ACLU of Texas, Rebecca Robertson, in a statement. “We are seeking full disclosure about the construction and funding of this structure so we can better understand the circumstances,” she said.
Public Education Director for ACLU of Texas Dottie Griffith told CP that the organization is interested in finding out whether public money was used “to favor one religion over others. We believe it’s an overreach for the government to favor one religion over another.”
A day after the ACLU filing, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent letters to the city and university officials asking for the removal of the cross. The letter says that the cross gives the appearance of government endorsement of Christianity, which is in violation of the Constitution.
The public records request was filed Friday, and the City of San Antonio and TAMU-SA have 10 business days to provide the ACLU with the requested documents.
Remember when we had a First Amendment to the Constitution that prohibited the commies in the government from pulling this kind of horsesh!t?
Carried to its logical conclusion, we will have to tear down crosses off of churches.
Why? Because the crosses can be seen from public streets, which are paid for by us taxpayers. The mere sight of a cross on a private church from a public right of way could be construed as offensive and illegal.
If we’re going to have a legal violation involved with the mere sight of a cross on private property seen by the general public, the tearing down of any crosses visible to the general public could come to pass.
And on top of that, they always pull this kind of cr@p when we are going into the Christmas season.
May I be among the first to tell the ACLU to just up and f**k off?
Oh......too late?
http://www.tamusa.tamus.edu/artsandsciences/criminology/people.html
“Sissy Bradford earned both her first and second master’s degrees from Texas State University-San Marcos. During the seven years between degrees she taught in Alaska. She has taught courses in sociology and criminal justice for Alamo Community College District. Her current research project focuses on the news coverage of San Antonio homicides by race, gender, and novelty: The Reproduction of Symbolic Dangerousness and Racial Stereotypes through Selection Bias in News Media Reporting of Homicide; 1995-2005, San Antonio, Texas.”
If you can’t do, teach. If you can’t teach, do a silly research project.
part of the continuing war against Christianity by the aCLU. A legacy of its Communist Party USA founders. and probably still party members in it.
A country is known by its symbols. A country with no crosses means it is not a Christian nation.
Sissy Bradford is an employee of a school supported by the State of Texas. As one of her employers, I find her offensive.
Can I demand that she be removed from the campus and the public payroll?
Take the school seal off, put the cross back on. Done.
Carried to its logical conclusion, we will have to tear down crosses off of churches.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
They will be brought to their collective knees when they start removing ‘symbols’ from well know ‘sites’ such as Va Tech, Texas Tower (C Whitman), Kent State (sure the hippies got some kind of memorial there), Columbine etc etc.
And lets not forget those makeshift crosses on highway shoulders -....
Get one (try) get them all....
YES
put up a crescent and see if they object
If they had to remove anything, they should have removed the university’s seal and kept the cross.
Now the jerk-offs from the ACLU can go back to dry-humping their Stalin blow up dolls secure in the knowledge that,once again, they were able to remove a small cross.
Christmas time for the ACLU must be like Viagra for them.
Charleston SC forbids buildings to be built taller than the many church steeples in town.
I'm not so sure they'd be willing to go along with this. Those folks have proven they aren't scared of a fight.
My first thought exactly. It's private property. So why did the owner of the tower decide NOT to remove the seal? Odd.
Communist Goals
for the take-over of America
http://archive.glennbeck.com/news/03212002.shtml
27) Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28) Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
24) Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25) Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography, and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
26) Present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy.”
Hell with them, we need to get The United States Constitutional Rights Union in on this one. Constitutional Rights trump "civil liberties" any old day.
questioned the placement as a First Amendment violation.
I'll tell you what's a First Amendment violation...a government official "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" by a private citizen.
Criminology professor Sissy Bradford
You're no perfesser, you're a criminal...a Constitutional Criminal.
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