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1. Global warming claims all hot air, says speaker at OU2. Palmer Fest house fire tenants speak out about arson, street fest3. Assault victim dies; alleged assailant charged with murder4. Local developer seeks permit for Utica production/test well5. Man life-flighted after alleged assault6. Glouster cleanup campaign makes national news7. Amesville area woman drowns after car stalls in high water8. Local deep-shale drama has another twist9. Cunningham Energy offers new deal to fund its test-drilling plans in Athens County10. New church to double as music/community center11. City wants to control fests, not stop them12. Police chief: City can’t stop parties before they start13. City, university schedule town meeting to discuss Palmer Fest14. After the street party, the criminal convictions15. Parties spun by OU alums have bootie-shakers raving16. High St. student renters take on big local landlord17. Engineer has go-ahead to give retiring employees big payout18. Tanning parlor fights to get back into uptown Athens storefront19. Landowners’ group renews leasing pitch20. Non-profits chosen for multi-media charity project
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Thursday, October 22,2009
On Mojave cross issue, Justice Scalia, VFW are both liars
To the Editor:
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a liar. I hate to write that because I honor and respect the U.S. government and the U.S. Supreme Court, but when a government official and an ardent Christian such as Justice Scalia misrepresents what he knows as the truth, I feel compelled to call him what he is.
In a recent case before this country's highest court, Salazar v. Buono, in which the court considered the constitutionality of a religious symbol erected on federal land in California's Mojave Desert, the honorable justice said that the idea that such a cross doesn't honor Jewish and other non-Christian veterans is "outrageous!" As a Jewish veteran, I can tell him (and you, gentle reader) that such a monument erected on public land insults, rather than honors, me and my faith. If it were erected on private land, however, I would find it a beautiful symbolic representation of Christian patriotism and Christian patriots.
Filing briefs in support of Justice Scalia's perspective were: the Veterans of Foreign Wars (which originally erected the cross on land which it did not own), the American Legion and the Military Order of the Purple Heart, as well as several Christian organizations.
Filing briefs in opposition to the Scalia/VFW position were the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
If the VFW and its supporters insist that the erection of this central symbol of Christianity is not religious, I ask them to stop pretending that they are in any way patriotic. Further, I ask them to never again express support for the Ten Commandments in general, or for that commandment which requires believers, "Thou Shalt not Lie."
As a disabled Jewish Vietnam combat veteran, I insist on my right to call myself patriotic, and the further right to call Justice Scalia, the VFW, and their cronies, unpatriotic, two-faced, bigoted liars.
Eliot Kalman
Athens
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REPLY TO THIS COMMENT
Eliot KalmanThe VFW and others say they believe that Jewish veterans are honored by this cross even though the decendents of those supposedly honored veterans say they believe their ancestor veterans are in fact insulted. Irrelevant, reasons the Justice, In being so honored, neither the involvement nor the acquiesence of the honoree is needed: The decendents of those so honored may be offended and claim that their ancestors are or would have been offended; being offended is not unconstitutional and that their ancestors are or would have been offended is entirely speculative. This cross honors Jewish veterans regardless of what Jews believe. Why isn't the VFW embarrassed to be associated with this course of reasoning?
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