Part 9 in an ongoing series about the Nativity Display on City Hall battle here in Berkley, Michigan.
(NOTE: While I am a member of Citizens for Religious Freedom, I am posting this as an individual, NOT as an official representative of the group.)
THE SHORT VERSION: We're facing a local ballot proposal in less than 30 days which, if passed, would FORCE the city council to build a Nativity display on city hall property. While this sort of issue pops up several times every year somewhere or another in the nation, to my knowledge this is the first time that there's been a city ordinance on the ballot which would specifically REQUIRE church & state to mix in such a fashion.
The backstory can be read here, here, here--oh, never mind; just visit our website to learn more.
As I noted in my last update, after our successful fundraiser, our opponents decided to up the ante by bringing in the "big guns"--aka Tom Monaghan's (FORMER owner of Domino's Pizza) right-wing Christian outfit, the Thomas More Law Center, who proceeded to blitz the wingnutosphere of the web with their misleading press release.
Well, it didn't take long for World Nut Daily to get ahold of the story and work it into their own version of Fox News' "War on Christmas" silliness.
The good news for us is that we've finally started putting up our lawn signs (they got a jump on us by putting theirs out a week earlier--actually, they technically violated the rules for such things by putting them up more than 30 days before the election, but whatever), and we were wise enough to include our website address on the signs.
In the meantime, the Thomas More press release, after appearing in various right-wing evangelical blogs, etc, appears to have generated the standard bevy of Freeper-type responses, which I'm not terribly surprised by.
What I am a little bit (not much) surprised by, however, is the fact that I know this--because or opponents have chosen to VOLUNTARILY post some of the more extreme "letters of support" on their own website!
Now, some of these are fairly innocuous and at least somewhat reasonable (basic "I support you" stuff), but others...well, just to give you an idea:
"It is imperative that America and Americans retain our heritage, and what the founders were also in support of."
"Thank you for defending the Christian faith and standing up to the atheist ACLU. I live next to Sodom & Gomorrah (San Francisco, California)."
"The ACLU (American Communist Lawyer Underwriters) must NOT be allowed to intimidate our communities into becoming a Godless, valueless wasteland."
(etc, etc).
Interestingly part about this--out of 19 emails that they posted, only 1 claims to be from Berkley; 14 specifically state that they're from outside of the area (4 don't give any indication of location at all).
Even more interestingly, they've only listed one person's actual full name, and that person is from Italy! The rest of the emails don't list any name at all, or only list a first name.
By contrast, we have the names--first and last--of 50 (and counting) actual, current Berkley residents who support the NO vote publicly displayed on our website. (our actual numbers are much higher, but some people are obviously more private than others).
For more local press coverage of the issue, including feature stories and letters to the editor in Woodward Talk, the Royal Oak Tribune and others, visit our webiste at http://www.citizensforreligiousfreed... and help us get Berkley residents to Vote NO on Nov. 6th!
http://www.citizensforreligiousfreed...
http://www.berkleyvoteno.org
Note: Holy cats! As I said, I was hoping to get up on the Recomended list, but I didn't figure on hitting the top spot--I'm overwhelmed! (And I'll stop being quite so "rec-begging" going forward; I figure the story has enough awareness now that future updates should get a decent amount of readers...)
I'm just now starting to read through the 100+ comments, so forgive me if it takes awhile to respond to every question, but I promise to do so (unless already addressed by someone else).
UPDATE: Just to clarify that Tom Monaghan no longer owns Domino's Pizza--he sold the whole company many years ago. Domino's has nothing to do with this issue; the only reason I mentioned the connection was because that's what Monaghan is best know for and that's where his billions came from.
UPDATE #2: There seems to be some confusion about one important point here: The Mayor and 5 of the other 6 city councilmembers are ON OUR SIDE. They are the ones who wisely voted to move the creche OFF of City Hall property and over to the local churches in the first place. Again, this is essentially the OPPOSITE of the Dover, PA situation last year.
UPDATE #3: I just wanted to say thank you to everyone; since this diary was posted, we've picked up several new supporters here in Berkley (ie, local residents who didn't know about our organization until they read this) and a few new financial donations as well (we're accepting individual contributions from non-Berkley residents, but are not accepting contributions from any outside organizations, unlike, it would appear, our opponents). Keep your eye out for updates on the situation under the title "Berkley Nativity Brouhaha Update" through the election on Nov. 6!