Posted on 12/29/2010 9:55:11 PM PST by Binstence
Donald Henderson knows not to overdo it on Christmas decorations. A week after Thanksgiving, Henderson placed a tasteful wreath on the front door, strung a few lights along the front porch railing, and, just to elevate his game a notch or two, plopped an inflatable Mickey and Minnie Mouse on his front lawn, wishing all "Season's Greetings."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The crux of the issue, pardon the pun, is that Muslims, Jews, so called, "gays" and people of color all have something Christians do not, minority status. Minority status affords some Americans (legal residents or not) special rights and protections under anti-discrimination laws. George Orwell described it best when he wrote in "Animal Farm", "Some animals are MORE EQUAL than others.
Neither the property association, Title VII nor any other "politically correct" (New-age McCarthyism) edict supersedes the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." --The First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Wherever questions and challenges to free speech arise the courts must err on the side of liberty. Unfortunately for the Christian majority viewpoint discrimination, censorship and intolerance of evangelism has become commonplace in the successful secularist war on the faithful and their religious cleansing of America's Christian heritage.
Evangelism and free debate, religious, irreligious or anti-religious is the very hallmark of our eroding republic. The goal is godless Marxism and the left is very near achieving their goal of establishing the state as the ultimate authority and not The Creator who the Founding Fathers so freely talked about. Keep in mind that in the 20th century alone the atheists Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, Hitler, Stalin et al "imagined no religion" and 20 million people lost their lives.
In my opinion the "embarrassed believer" who will no doubt deny Jesus as many times as Peter is to blame, not the evil left. The left can not gain a single inch of ground philosophically. Their only power is derived from the relative passivity of the compromised Christian.
I applaud the homeowner's strong stance and will pray protection and favor over he and his family.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."--Attributed to Edmund Burke
The HOA has a rule prohibiting signs, except for political signs and realtor signs.
Contrary to the "Christian Hunting Season," this community was have a CHRISTMAS decorating contest.
If he had put out a Nativity Scene, no problem. The fact that it was a SIGN, which is prohibited, put the Board and the manager into a bad position. If they enforce, they get bad press; if they don't enforce, they can get sued for NOT enforcing.
Looks like this family would have been better served reading their governing documents instead of calling the press.
And yes, the association has the right to make rules. Don't like them, don't BUY a home in an HOA and then complain when they enforce the rules.
As a the President of an HOA I will tell you this has nothing to do with religion, but about A SIGN. I’m sure if a jewish person put up a sign saying something about Hanukkah, the same thing would have happened. I implore everyone to read their HOA documents, CC&R’s and Rules and Regulations before buying a home in a community. If you don’t like it, DON’T BUY INTO IT. There’s plenty of other places you can go. That all being said, my HOA would never do something like this, although the thing about signs are in the rules - we certainly make exceptions on the holidays. But There’s always one busy body who has to make a stink. Every community has at least one person like that...but it’s not a conspiracy against Christians. yikes.
We were thinking alike, but you wrote it better! Wait 10 seconds for the slew of posts about the Nazi like HOA’s...ever six months we go through it here.
It is unconstitutional to allow “political” signs and not Christian signs. No HOA has the right to destroy First Amendment rights.
While I agree that one incident in one neighborhood is not much cause for alarm but as I wrote, “Unfortunately for the Christian majority viewpoint discrimination, censorship and intolerance of evangelism has become commonplace in the successful secularist war on the faithful and their religious cleansing of America’s Christian heritage.”
If you don’t agree run a search on church burnings, school board harassment of Christian speech, attacks on public prayer even in our military academies the Christian viewpoint is under merciless attack from the merciless ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center et al.
Anti-Christian bigotry has become societally acceptable. I used and will use this and every opportunity large or small to have dialogue on this topic.
Again, the problem not the godless left but it is that too many believers remain silent about the persecution of Christians in America and around the globe. I am not one of those people.
correction: “Again, the problem IS NOT the godless left...”
The HOA is a not-for-profit corporation. It most certainly can make rules that govern it, and those who are part of it. When you buy into the community, you agree to adhere to the rules, even the ones you don't like.
The sign could have said, "I love my HOA!" or "Death to Widgets!" and it would STILL violate the rules. Doesn't matter if it was a Christian message, Buddist, Muslim, or Wiccan!
It's not unconstitutional to allow certain signs. The political signage exemption is usually written into the State's real estate property code by politicians, as are the realtor's signs.
Sorry to be abrupt, but this gets old and rehashed every few months on FR, because folks don't understand how HOAs function and leapt to all sorts of conclusions without full information. And usually, the dog fight starts because someone hasn't read their documents and is upset when they get called on it.
I wholeheartedly agree that anti-Christian bigotry is the last acceptable form of bigotry in America, and is evident everywhere.
I'm trying to point out that in this instance, the Board and management were not Christian bashing - they were enforcing the rules. Didn't matter what the sign said; letting it stay up would have exposed them to a potential lawsuit because it violated the rules.
Have this family put out a Navitity Scene instead, and stay within their HOA guidelines.
It is a big country and the dirty little secret is that there are a lot of houses valued really cheap right now. Move to where you can do whatever you want.
I live where you can hang almost anything out front and no one cares. (Except for dead hookers. Apparently there is some sort of state law)
I remember the last one, it was brutal.
It never ceases to amaze me how folks love HOAs, the perks and the rules that keep neighborhoods looking beautiful, until it applies to them.
When we went househunting a few years ago, I insisted on receiving copies of all the CC&Rs BEFORE we bought. I wanted to make sure the rules were a good fit for my family, not just the floor plan or the amenities.
Thankfully, more folks are doing that now than just a few years ago. In another 5 to 10 years (presuming it doesn't all go to blazes in a handbasket), most potential buyers will be more HOA savvy.
I don’t suppose any of the fine gentlemen above read the article....where the Christmas decoration winners had....a sign.
And they say CA is bad. Let ´em try and take down my sign.
Wait, the sign said "Seasons Greetings". We've been told over and over that Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays were not Christian signs but were part on the war on Christmas pushing Christians out? It can't be both. You are also wrong on the Constitutional issue. Per the Constitution "Congress shall make no law"... This isn't Congress, this is a contract between two parties, in this case the homeowner and the HOA to follow simple rules if they choose to buy a home within the area. The homeowner agreed to the contract to not put up signs and violated said contract.
Unfortunately, it’s the EXCEPTIONS that create the problem. If you want to allow Christmas signs, don’t ban them in the rules! I’d implore you to search the contracts, find any rules that are frequently excepted, and try whatever means to amend the rules to permit the exceptions.
This is the problem: People read the prohibitions against the signs, but see signs all over the place and figure, “this legalese must not mean what it appears to mean.” Maybe they think “Merry Christmas” is considered a decoration, not a sign. But the point is they see “Merry Christmas” all over the place and decide, “we can live here.”
Then, after they live there several years, for whatever reason, the HOA decides to enforce the rules.
If you don’t fix your HOA rules, someone after you could strip your community of all sorts of priveleges you regard as a right. At the same time, you can find yourself having all sorts of a controversies over the inequal enforcement. (If you permit the Christmas signs, you may find you MUST permit the “Death to America” signs.)
So noted. But our board does look at special requests and are allowed to act on each independently.
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