Garethp said:
Honestly, after looking into the law suit, it's not that silly. They're suing, not because there was a religious symbol in the memorial (they don't actually care about that), but because it was the only religious symbol. Again, not because no other religious symbol was asked to be put up there, but because all the other requests were denied. They're suing because NY said that only the Christian symbol should be there. They're suing for religious equality, saying that there was no reason to deny other religions
People may think it's silly to fight over that, but honestly, a fight over any kind of equality is a fight worth having. You can't create equality by deciding what is and is not a silly type of equality to pursue
Just saying
Very reasonable then. Question: Is it actually an Atheist organization making the lawsuit. If it is, then the only thing I find a little odd is that it would be atheists suing for more religious symbols to be allowed. I would think that individual religious groups would be suing for their own. Atheists would be uninvolved one would think.
I can think of two reasons for this decision by NY:
1) The US still thinks of itself as a country founded on a single religion, Christianity. Their founding principal seems to be, yes you can come here, but you will adapt to our ways/beliefs. The whole melting pot idea. But given their stand on freedom of speech, etc. one would think they should accept the idea of multi-culturalism by now.
2) If they do allow other religious symbols for each religion that wants them... what happens when the muslims want one added. I completely believe that their were a lot of moderate (i.e. not crazy fundamentalist) muslims who were probably shocked and hurt by the Word Trade Center attack... but I can't imagine most of the people in the US would be okay with a symbol representing anything close to the group who was responsible for the attack being placed there as a memorial. So easier to deny all religious symbols (except their founding religion) than allow all by one?
Not saying I agree with those reasons... but I'm guessing they were the big two reasons for the decision.