Officials ban crosses at inauguration parade

[Amelia]

Officials ban crosses at inauguration parade

Christian group protests restrictions imposed in letter from Secret Service

January 5, 2005

WorldNetDaily.com

A Christian group is accusing the U.S. Secret Service of religious discrimination and censorship for issuing a memo that bans Christian crosses from the presidential inauguration parade later this month.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian Defense Coalition, contends the Secret Service has "trampled the First Amendment and crushed religious freedom in the public square."

"Simply put, it is religious bigotry and censorship," he said. "It is even more troubling when one realizes that it is only Christian symbols that have been excluded from the inauguration parade."

Tom Mazur, spokesman for the Secret Service, told WorldNetDaily the prohibition is simply a security matter that has nothing to do with the religious nature of the cross.

"The reference to the cross is strictly in regard to structure, certainly not the symbol," he said. "There is no prohibition based on content, only structure or materials that could be used in a potentially harmful or threatening manner."

The prohibition was issued in a Dec. 17 memo to the National Park Service that the Christian Defense Coalition received along with its approved demonstration permit.

Mahoney's group plans to be at the Jan. 20 event for a prayer vigil and "to challenge President Bush to remember the innocent children who have been lost through abortion and to appoint pro-life justices."

The Secret Service memo says, in part:

With respect to signs and placards, the Secret Service would ask that these items be limited to items made of cardboard, poster board or cloth and have dimensions no greater than three feet in width, twenty feet in length and one-quarter inch thickness. As noted above, we are asking that supports for signs and placards be prohibited as these items may be used as a means of concealing weapons or as weapons themselves."

Additionally, the prohibition on structures includes props, folding chairs, bicycles, displays such as puppets papier mache objects, coffins, crates, crosses, theaters, cages and statues.

The Department of Homeland Security has designated the four days of inauguration events a National Special Security Event, putting the Secret Service in charge of overall security planning.

Already, security has been heightened around the White House, where police have set up a street checkpoint with a sign reading "100 percent ID check."

Mazur said crosses would be allowed at the parade site if they conformed to the same material and size restrictions applied to signs and placards. For example, a cross made of cardboard could be brought, he affirmed.

But Mahoney told WorldNetDaily that explanation "doesn't fly," arguing that the prohibition outlined in the memo bans crosses outright and does not say they are allowed if they meet certain restrictions, such as those mentioned for signs and placards.

"Are coffins allowed if they are the right material and size, or bicycles?" he asked.

In the past, he said, his group has brought wooden crosses to the inauguration "to remind people of innocent lives lost through abortion."

Mahoney said his legal team likely will send a letter to the Secret Service demanding the agency rescind the prohibition on crosses.

"The only way we would not go to court on this -- the Secret Service would have to issue an apology and remove that ban altogether," he said.

Mahoney's 12-year-old group has been at every inauguration since 1993, he said. In 1997, he successfully sued in federal court for the right to get a demonstration permit for President Clinton's second inaugural parade. Prior to that, no protest permits were issued, he said.

"To my knowledge, this is the first time the federal government has ever singled crosses out," said Mahoney. "I have been involved in public ministry and demonstrations for 27 years, and I have never heard of a cross being used as a weapon anywhere."

His group plans to hold a news conference today at the corner of 4th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington, in front of the Canadian Embassy.

At this location, the group also plans to conduct a prayer vigil and demonstration during the parade.

The Christian Defense Coalition was in the news last year as a prominent organizer of rallies in defense of ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's Ten Commandments monument.

[californiagirl]

I read that the inauguration celebration is going to cost $40 million.

Can that be true??

[Bravus]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/a...y_on/index.html

[Neil D]

Bravus-

Please check the link. It says that the article can not be found...

[Bravus]

Hmm, worked for me. It's on Salon, to which I subscribe, so what it *should* do is pop up a page asking you to view an ad to get a day pass to read Salon articles. Maybe it's *that* page that it couldn't find? Sorry about that, but it might be worth trying again a bit later.

In the mean time, it's a report of the 40-45 million that will be spent on the inauguration party. It's mainly a discussion of this New York Times article (registration required): http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/politics/03letter.html?oref=login

[Ron Lambert]

Unless some Catholic bishops want to carry "the Host" in the Inauguration parade, I don't see what the problem is. A picture of a cross will work just as well as a replica. I do not think this is really discriminatory toward Christians. Replicas of the Statue of Liberty would also be prohibited.

Christians wanting to make some kind of point can always wear little crosses on necklaces.

[Dr. Shane]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

It's on Salon, to which I subscribe

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Sex, lies and videotape. Quite a confession!!!

[Amelia]

Atheist sues to prevent prayer at Bush inauguration

Associated Press

Jan 6 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - An atheist who sued because he did not want his young daughter exposed to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is now filing a suit to bar the saying of a prayer at President Bush's inauguration.

Michael Newdow, of Sacramento, notes that two ministers, the Reverend Franklin Graham and the Reverend Kirbyjon Caldwell, delivered Christian invocations at Bush's first inaugural ceremony in 2001.

The Inaugural '05 Web site says, "A minister chosen by the President will deliver an invocation" before Bush takes the oath of office Jan. 20.

Newdow, in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says that's unconstitutional and is seeking an expedited hearing of his case, which is tentatively scheduled Jan. 14.

It's not the first time Newdow has made such a court challenge. Last year, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed the same lawsuit.

The appeals court said his lawsuit seeking to abolish clergy-led prayer at the inauguration was "futile." The court said Newdow did not suffer "a sufficiently concrete and specific injury."

That decision, however, did not bar him from filing the challenge in a different circuit.

Newdow is best known for trying to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Newdow won that case more than two years ago before a federal appeals court, which said it was an unconstitutional blending of church and state for public school students to pledge to God.

In June, however, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed the case, saying Newdow could not lawfully sue because he did not have custody of his elementary school-aged daughter, on whose behalf he sued, and because the girl's mother objected to the suit.

Newdow, who is a physician and a lawyer, refiled that pledge suit in Sacramento federal court this week, naming eight co-plaintiffs who are custodial parents or the children themselves.

[Amelia]

Forget Iraq and South Asia, It's Party Time

Margaret Carlson

January 6, 2005

Los Angeles Times

Jeanne Phillips, chairwoman of the 55th Presidential Inaugural Committee, was asked in a recent interview if the $40 million being spent on the festivities might be better spent on the troops in Iraq. No, not really. She and the president instead decided to dedicate the festivities to "honoring service" and throwing, for the first time, a Commander in Chief Ball to which 2,000 servicemen have been invited. That, of course, leaves out the 140,000 troops stationed in Iraq, and countless others around the world. Just how do these events benefit the troops? "I'm not sure that they do," she admitted, but she quickly repeated that "honoring service is what our theme is about."

Let the troops eat a theme. Members of the 101st Airborne Division will no doubt be pleased to learn that partygoers at nine ballrooms will be honoring them. Surely that soldier who asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about a lack of armor won't feel so bad about his unfortified vehicle if 2,000 servicemen are eating canapes in his name, and arms merchants are dancing till dawn in honor of arms-bearers in Mosul.

What's surprising is that the down-to-earth president doesn't get that the world has changed since his extravaganza in 2001. The master of identifying with the common man has blown such an easy opportunity to reinforce the image he's so ardently cultivated, an image that just won him reelection despite four years of policies undertaken on behalf of the uncommon man. It's a mask he must maintain if he's to make tax cuts permanent, dismantle Social Security and pursue an ownership society for the benefit of the people who already own it — without the rest of the country catching on.

Naming the inaugural ball "Patriotic" doesn't make it so. That's especially true now that the war is overlaid with massive human suffering and deprivation in South Asia. If you were looking for the opposite of planting a victory garden, you couldn't do better than to have sitcom star Kelsey Grammer emcee the military ball. If you want to laugh at human suffering then go trip the light fantastic at the Liberty Ball. (Visiting the black hole of devastation in Sumatra, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "I've never seen anything like it." Of course, nothing Powell says will change anything. Powell's involvement in an issue is confirmation that the president doesn't care about it.)

Even the soft-as-a-pillow interviewer Larry King saw the incongruity of all this. In the middle of a joint interview on Monday with Bush 41 and Bill Clinton, just named to spearhead private donations for tsunami victims, King said "some people are saying that maybe some of the inaugural events can be … canceled or tempered down. What do you think?" Bush the elder said: "I think life goes on. I don't think it will help anything in Sri Lanka if the balls were, you know, peeled back. That's a separate question." Any suggestion that his son was slow to respond or chintzy, added Bush, was simply "inside-the-Beltway stuff."

Life goes on; that's a truism. But inside the Beltway there was hardly a peep. This is fully Bushland now. Why is it a separate question? Given that the events are dedicated to the troops, why not give half the $40 million to them (with a chunk to the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for phone cards so they can call home) and half of it to Sri Lanka?

So why did Bush finally spring into action on the tsunami? It was his slow realization that he looked out of step with ordinary Americans, treating his base as less than they are, simply as a voting bloc. While millions of good-hearted Americans were jamming the websites of Catholic Charities, the American Red Cross and other groups with donations, Bush was still on vacation, clearing brush at the ranch. It took more than a week for him to make a personal donation.

To cancel the balls, one Republican said, would be a cheap gesture. That was like the White House's initial excuse for dragging its feet, that Bush didn't want to jump on tragedies as did his predecessor, Clinton, who Bush has officially appointed to jump on the tragedy.

But the truth is that Bush loves a cheap gesture — landing on an aircraft carrier in a flyboy suit or giving a speech like the one Wednesday on medical malpractice, in which he was surrounded by people in white jackets to signify medical good practice.

The deputy of the inaugural organization said a presidential inaugural has never been canceled, even during the world wars, so the administration isn't going to start now. But that's the inauguration itself, which is a pretty economical affair — a Bible, a platform, some seating. Balls are different. Franklin D. Roosevelt canceled three balls because of the Depression and World War II. It is hard to believe that a president who used life-size pictures of Roosevelt as a backdrop at an international speech wouldn't see the anomaly. Imagine if this were a month after the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11.