Fargo City Commission Votes To Move 10 Commandments Off City Property | KXNet.com North Dakota News

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Fargo City Commission Votes To Move 10 Commandments Off City Property



Disclaimer: This article is a blog post and does not represent the views or opinions of Reiten Television, KXNet.com, its staff and associates and is wholly owned by the user who posted this content.


Now a local citizen wants to put the issue to a vote of the people

Local religious activist Martin Wishnatsky said today he has started an initiative petition to let voters decide whether the Ten Commandments monument should remain on the City Hall mall

“I think the people in the city overwhelmingly favor keeping the monument where it is,” he said. “I think the City Commission majority is out of tune with the voters.”

Commissioners voted 3-2 Monday to move the monument off city property by donating it to a private entity.

I posted previously on this issue here

I’m an atheist, but personally I don’t really have a problem with religious imagery on public property.  As long as people of all religion (and people of no religion at all) are treated equally under the law I couldn’t care less about some monument.  But seeing as how most people do care about whether or not a religiously-themed monument should be on public grounds I think a vote of the people is a perfect solution

A solution that should be applied every time controversy over something like this pops up.  Elected political representatives should encourage such votes, if only to remove themselves from the middle of a sticky issue

Better to just let the people decide.  If a majority of the taxpayers want the monument on the land they paid for, so be it.  If a majority don’t, ditto

Sadly, far too many of the people who foment these controversies are more concerned with imposing their will on everyone else than solutions that please the largest number of people.  Which is the case with these unthinking “Freethinkers” who pushed to have this monument removed in the first place

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Disclaimer: This article is a blog post and does not represent the views or opinions of Reiten Television, KXNet.com, its staff and associates and is wholly owned by the user who posted this content.



Comments Posted by KXNet.com Users

Posted by Nick Gisburne on Jun 19 2007 5:51PM - It is not for the general public to vote on such legal matters. Opinions cannot override laws, particularly where those laws are part of the US Constitution (ie separation of church and state). And representative government has the advantage that it can protect minorities from the majority. Sometimes the minority should win out, simply because they are the ones in the right.

Remember that if you allow one religion to put its monuments on public land/buildings, it is only fair to allow others. Would you like Jewish or Islamic symbols on your courthouses and public buildings? Even within Christianity the 10 commandments may be worded differently (the Catholic version certainly differs), so who is right?

Better to remove all religious symbols from public property, because their presence only serves to divide people who are not of the same religious persuasion. Private property, well that's a different matter completely - it's what 'freedom of religion' is all about, and on private property you can put up whatever symbols of your faith that you please.

Posted by Jake Harris on Jun 19 2007 11:23PM - The phrase "seperation of church and state" does not appear anywere in any official governemt document. It is from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote and he used in in a negetive connotation. I frankly don't understand why people have such a problem with the 10 commandments being posted. people just like to complain about things even if it dousn't really bother anyone else.

Posted by Bruce on Jun 20 2007 8:04AM - Why not put it to a vote? Because this exact issue has been ruled unconstitutional over and over again in towns accross America. Have you not read the accounts of how each municipality thought they were right and just and in the end they were required to move it AND pay the court costs of the complainants and their own lawyers?

I wonder if this is one of the monuments originally placed by director Cecil B. DeMille as a publicity stunt to promote his 1956 film The Ten Commandments? If so then they have been removed by legal force one at a time.

Whether 3 of Fargo's commissioners did it because they are freethinkers (not likely in an elected position) or because they understood the legal issue, does not matter. They saved your cash strapped community a couple of million in a protracted court battle that would end in failure.

You take an odd position for an atheist. You side with the bible that condemns you over the constitution that protects you.

Rob, your name is missing from this article and only your first name is in the referenced article. Nor do I blame you. A professing atheist in a nation that feels entitled to put up only Protestant artifacts at their courthouses runs the risk of ostracism or unemployment.

That is what us hysterical freethinkers are trying to change. The provincial notion that the Protestants are in charge and everyone else can have their inalienable rights as long as they accept the majority's control.

Posted by Larry Nixtor on Jun 20 2007 1:29PM - This letter is Pollyannaish and hopelessly naive. If the public always get to vote on any issue, the rights of any minority will always be ru over roughshod. This is not the way our government and Constitution is set up.

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