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Atheist group 'Unblesses' Florida highway
1st step towards Florida's long overdue renaissance I suppose.
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/03/19/atheist-group-unblesses-florida-road/
LAKELAND, Fla. (CBS Tampa) ? A local atheist organization made a splash on Saturday when they symbolically washed away a blessing placed on a major highway into the county one year ago.
The tongue-in-cheek protest on County Road 98 was meant to bring light to a bigger issue seen by the Humanists of Florida Association ? an issue of seeming conflicts of interest between several high-seated county officials and their faiths.
?If it were just some church blessing a road, that?s not a big deal ? churches can do what they want,? HFA director Mark Palmer told CBS Tampa. ?The point of [the demonstration] was to protest the co-mingling of church and state ? the government endorsement of religion.?
Their main point of contention was a billboard posted by the Christian Churches of Polk County and the Polk Under Prayer movement (PUP) that boldly displays photos of Lakeland Mayor Gow Fields, Polk County School Board Superintendent Dr. Sherrie Nickell, and Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
?We simply want Polk County to realize that ? there are many different types of world views out there, and they need to open county borders to all of the people,? HFA president Ellen Beth Wachs told CBS Tampa. ?We understand that Christians have their way of life, and we?re not trying to take it away from them. But they need to realize that there are many other types of faith, and people of non-faith as well.?
Scott Wilder, director of communications for Polk County Sheriff?s Office, said that Judd had participated in a PUP-sponsored meeting of a more secular nature, but that he and other officials were not involved with the highway annointing ceremony.
?[They] attended a big public meeting of mainline churches ? to talk about what challenges face the county,? he said to CBS Tampa. ?It was a mainstream event.?
Added Wilder of the blessing ceremony, ?None of them had anything to do with it ? the sheriff, the mayor, or the superintendent.?
The blessing itself was performed on March 1, 2011.
?Mainly, we want this to be a safe haven for folks who want to raise their families,? PUP organizer Dr. Richard Geringswald told WFTS-TV. ?Asking God?s protection from ne?er do wells and evil doers.?
Re: Atheist group 'Unblesses' Florida highway
Link?
eta: not b/c I don't believe you! I just can't believe they'd do something like that.
I retract any hope I alluded to in the OP.
Oh, what's that? Asking for citation?
Yeah, I can deliver.
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/atheists-plan-to-spiff-up-cr98-saturday-of-anointing-oil-left-by-christians-a-year-ago
Mainly we want this to be a safe haven for folks who want to raise their families," explained Polk Under Prayer organizer, Dr. Richard Geringswald. "Asking God's protection from ne'er do wells and evil doers."A year later, members of the campaign spent this last week burying bricks, engraved with Psalm 37:9-11, beside the twelve major roadways leading into Polk County, including I-4.
PUP leaders prayed over the bricks, asking for God to change the hearts of criminals who enter or exit their county, and if not, to incarcerate them.
my read shelf:
Yeah, after nine years of life in Central FL, I'd be scared to raise a child in Polk County.
Oh, those craaaazy Floridians and their hijinks!
They got it wrong, everyone knows you need to wrap the bible-verse-inscribed brick in the wings of a dead chicken before you bury it beside the path for the prayer to work properly.
I know! I thought we could just post random facts and then leave the post?