Last year, American Atheists Inc. formed a lawsuit to get
rid of the 9/11 museum’s choice of a huge steel cross that’s located on ground
zero. The Museum is still currently fighting the lawsuit against them. The Atheist
group believes that a religious symbol should have no place as a monument where
those of a different belief have died. The president of the Atheist group,
David Silverman, was quoted saying, “This shrine is a cross. It was picked up,
trimmed, polished, the word 'Jesus' was carved on top of it, it was prayed over
in front of a church for five years.”
The museum believes
that the cross tells the story of 9/11 and of the hope volunteers had to find
survivors during that time. They also point out that the government does not
have any say of what religious symbols a museum decides to include in their
collection. “The museum argues that it is an "independent non-profit
corporation, and not a government body.”
The museum is claiming that the cross has no religious
purpose, that it’s just a way to tell the story of what happened. If that was
true then the story is one sided. More than just Christians, Catholics and people
that practice religions that use the cross as a religious symbol, died that
day, but they’re not represented in the story the museum is telling. The ground
where they died is taken up by one huge cross and no other object or symbol
that represents the lives and stories of the rest of the people who died
whether they were first hand victims or those who died trying to help put out
the fire and search for survivors. I believe that if they put up one symbol that
represents a certain group of people they should put up other symbols on the
site that represent all of the victims on that day
.
What do you think the museum should do about this situation?
What do you believe
should be on ground zero, if anything?
Should the government have more say about what goes into
museums if their representation of things goes against the constitution in some
way, or excludes certain groups from
their exhibits?
This is a very interesting conflict to read about. I believe the cross as a religious symbol in my culture, but the cross is definitely also a different story than the biblical one. In my belief, the cross was put up to symbolize, respect, honor, and represent our heroes (firefighters, policemen, and others) that took their lives to actually have the courage to enter into a tumbling and collapsing building to save others' lives and people want to complain our true goodness of this country. Grow up! The cross symbolizes our country's strengths and perseverance through hardships, but we'll always make a better outcome and overcome! Great blog and story to mention Desiree!
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