Spongebob Not Good Enough For Ohio Cemetery

[orangeapples]

I think the family is being selfish and aren't thinking about the message this would send to the kids. Any kids having to be in the cemetery would also have to be distraught over the idea that Spongebob is dead.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Of course saner and rational heads would realize this is an easy compromise. Regilar headstone, with a reliefed Spongebob engraving.

Wow, that is a perfect solution. You need to be in the funeral-directing business, because I figure this is not going to happen for this family.

Sad all the way around, especially that it got to this point before they (understandably) pulled the plug. That's got to be devastating on top of everything else.

 

[emeraldrafael]

On the one hand I agree with the cemetery taking it down cause it is a historic cemetery and you its not like you would go to DC and suddenly see a master chief plot standing in Arlington or anyhting.

... on the other, it is the wishes of the family, and it should be honored, although unless otherwise specially stated in the will I dont think they can hold tight against that.

I think in the end, the cemetery should have said at the start, this is a historic cemetery, we can't put spongebob there, we have standards. not waited till it was all done and the body in the ground to say they couldn't. I mean, I cant think of many ways a spongebob statue would look dignified ina cemetery before I put it on the ground.

EDIT:

I say that people in the Ohio area should "Sponge Bob" bomb the cemetery with every kind of Sponge Bob knick knack they can get their hands on until these pretentious wankers allow the original tombstone. Historical significance my bum, these assholes are just scared that they might lose some plot sales.

The plots were paid for, the headstone was approved. I say either the cemetery backs the fuck off OR they give the family their money back and foot the bill to have these poor people's daughter relocated to a cemetery not run by effete stuffed-shirted jackasses.

Yes let's just put tacky objects all over the graveyard with other people buried there, no need to care if you don't respect their opinions I mean why would anyone be unhappy that there loved ones grave is being disgraced just so someone can have their creepy personal tombstone. It looks horrible I would hate to have anyone of my family buried next to that thing just imagining visiting their grave with that there makes me feel sick.
Though I do agree that the cemetery needs to re-compensate the family completely for the tombstone and should try to have a tombstone made with sponge bob etched in it or a plaque with him on it

NO. Putting tacky and annoying, YET easily removable, objects around the cemetery as a form of protest does not count as desecration in my book. Spray painting, urinating and/or defecating upon, and kicking over headstones however would. And oddly enough so does forcing a family to remove their chosen headstone for a beloved family member.

...

It's still poor judgement and taste to put spongebob knick knacks on peoples graves that arent related to this at all, even if they are easily removeable. I cant imagine the families of those people would enjoy having to go out and see somoene left a children's show toy on their family member's plot and would probably just turn more public opinion against them. It's just an inconvenience to everyone at that point more than it is sending a message.

 

[Sarge034]

When you move into most communities there's a home owner's association or committee that see to such things. If your property becomes an eyesore and your neighbors are in agreement of that legal action can be brought against you (depending on your state).

And thankfully I don't live in one of those communities. If I pay for the property then it is mine to do with what I will. If the neighbors don't like it, they can put up a privacy fence.

Same goes for this story. The family paid for the plots and approved the designs beforehand. The contract was signed, money changed hands, and it became a legally binding agreement. I would sue the fuck outta this cemetery for breach of contract and "pain and suffering" just to fuck 'em up more. God I hope the family does not just roll over and take this.

Also, "Cemeteries act as memorials to the past, and they offer a unique view of our history, culture, and way of life," Spring Grove claims on its site. For better, or worse, is SpongeBob not going to be remembered in our history? Is it not part of our culture? I'm sure the church was up in arms when headstones stopped being crosses, but look at them now...

 

[Sarge034]

There are two sides to this really:

The rational: an employee made a mistake at the graveyard, they're being more than fair by offering to pay for both stones, it doesn't really fit in with a graveyard etc.

and

The emotional: the poor family, ex service person, it was what they wanted etc.

As usual I'm siding with the rational. Death is an emotive subject to some people as is the army it was always going to become an argument. The analogies already posted in this thread which remove those emotional triggers are apt, the people calling them not equivalent are pretty much admitting it is simply an emotional reaction.

Ok let's remove the emotional triggers. The family paid for the plots and approved the designs beforehand. The contract was signed, money changed hands, and it became a legally binding agreement. In contract law you have some wiggle room if money has not changed hands yet, but the story makes it sound like everything was paid for. So legally the cemetery must comply with the contract of risk being sued over breach of contract.

Don't try to make it out like there is no rational to the "emotional" or "family's side". It just shows your bias.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

My bet was the headstone was approved under the assumption that it would be a carving on a regular headstone or a much much smaller statuette, then when they saw this thing at real size very quickly realised how wrong that (otherwise very reasonable) assumption was.


Either way, seems to be a few facts being confused here, so to hopefully clarify;

1. they are not a child, they are a 3 tour war veteran and it is a war vet's graveyard
2. the deceased didn't pick the headstone for them self, their family did it.
3. the cemetery offered to pay for the original tombstone and pay for it's replacement, so it's not a case of 'well they were happy to take their money and now they're just being asses'.


I realise people are feeling like the family has been hard done but but really... they are indeed being kinda selfish and definitely distasteful by sticking something so gaudy in a cemetery shared by others, let alone a veterans one, even if the cemetery initially(accidentally) approved.
Many see/treat cemeteries as respectful solemn places, so as numerous people here already pointed out it would be a simple task to have a more regular tombstone with this image as a engraving, or to shrink down it's size, so that it remains respectful to those around(who have just as much right to have their love one laid to rest how they want, including not being buried near a rather unfortunate sponge-bob rendition.)

If the situation was reversed, the cultural majority having whacky cartoon character tomb stones as their way of showing respect, and someone decided they were just going to have a rectangular shape headstone with just some writing, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that would/could be seen as disrespectful, and be treated similarly to what happened here.

 

[Ympulse]

Think of it this way. You're a home owner, you have a nice little house and yard in the duburbs in a nice neighborhood. Then one day your get a new neighbor that believes cutting grass is opressive and allows his lawn and weeds to grow as nature intended, he also believes that his hows should be painted in a manner akin to the face of a clown. You would not be a very happy person would you?

Is that some.. culture-specific thing? Is there a certain law in your country that dictates how your front yard should look like? Because I myself couldn't care less about the look of someone else's private property. No offence, I'm just curious.

When it negatively affects the value of your home, you do care. Outside appearance (or curb appeal, I think is the term) dictates the vale of a home immensely, and if the johnsons net door decided to not mow their lawn and have a bozo the clown motif for their paint scheme, you can bet your ass the value of your home is going to drop by a not insignificant amount.

 

[RicoADF]

Think of it this way. You're a home owner, you have a nice little house and yard in the duburbs in a nice neighborhood. Then one day your get a new neighbor that believes cutting grass is opressive and allows his lawn and weeds to grow as nature intended, he also believes that his hows should be painted in a manner akin to the face of a clown. You would not be a very happy person would you?

Is that some.. culture-specific thing? Is there a certain law in your country that dictates how your front yard should look like? Because I myself couldn't care less about the look of someone else's private property. No offence, I'm just curious.

That is how it works in the US. You can get fined and such for not keeping your property up to code and regulations and looking good. It effects property value. If your property doesn't look nice and well kept, that lowers the value of it, as well as the properties surrounding it, because when it comes to a time when a neighbor wants to sell their house and move, it could be hard to sell their house because they have a neighbor next to them that doesn't have a nice looking property and makes the place look bad, which will make some prospective buyers say no, or at least say that they should pay less for having to live next to an untidy neighbor.

I actually remember a few months ago that a coworker said that a guy he knew got a visit from the police and they told him he needed to mow his lawn and clean up his property, or he would start getting fined for every set number days that he didn't comply.

I'm glad I don't live in the US then, its no-one else's right to tell you what to do in your own home/property.

 

[thethird0611]

Honestly, I think it is a stupid idea not to work with the cemetary to find something more appropriate.

The people who support the family keep saying "They can do it, they bought it, they should respect their wishes...". Well a few small things first. The cemetery owners have the final say, and there are rules, just like an HOA.

Now onto my big point.

Have you -ever- been really sad and someone tries to cheer you up? It never really works that well (and if you did, thats great for you, but the normal cycle of grief doesnt work like that.). It is HIGHLY disrespectful to put that image up in a graveyard where MANY other families are going to be grieving for their passed loved ones, and grief needs to have room to breath, not bothered because someone really need a statue of sponge bob that tends to draw peoples eyes. If it was engraved into the tombstone I can understand, but the statue is just not fair for any other people who are trying to express their grief in a healthy way.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Cemeteries are stupid. All that land being used to plant dead people. It's just social conditioning. Why can't people just cremate their dead and keep their ashes in an urn if they really want to preserve their dead?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

To be fair, it looks fucking ridiculous, but having originally agreed to allow it, I don't think the cemetery should get to back out.

Cemeteries are stupid. All that land being used to plant dead people. It's just social conditioning. Why can't people just cremate their dead and keep their ashes in an urn if they really want to preserve their dead?

That's practically as bad. All that fuel and those jars being used to burn and store dead people. Why can't people just eat their dead and make cutlery out of the bones if they really want to preserve their dead?

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

That Sponge bob looks like it was taken out of a Deviant art post.

If my family members were buried there I'd have thier bones exhumed and moved immediately! I know, to each their own but this is just a little too much!

 

[Mister K]

Can't they just make a normal tombstone with Spongebob's image on it? Just to find a compromise?

 

[Dante dynamite]

NO. Putting tacky and annoying, YET easily removable, objects around the cemetery as a form of protest does not count as desecration in my book. Spray painting, urinating and/or defecating upon, and kicking over headstones however would. And oddly enough so does forcing a family to remove their chosen headstone for a beloved family member.

As you yourself and the obvious complainers have shown, you find the Sponge Bob headstone tacky. Well you know what? TOO FUCKING BAD. Until you or the surrounding plot holders pay for the actual grave space, you do NOT fucking own it. And the owners have the right to decorate the graves of their own family as they see fit. Anything else is just massive hypocrisy.

"Oooh we are offended that someone in a grave not payed for by us looks tacky" Yeah? Well tough shit. What's next? A family of an atheist or satanist buried there is offended by all the graves marked by Christian iconography? Get over yourselves.

FFS! It sickens me to think that so many people would let their own sense of taste override the will of the family to choose their own method of celebrating the life of, and mourning the death of, the deceased. In my book you people are fucking pathetic.

Please keep exaggerating what I said by comparing it to religious insensitivity it truly does demonstrate your point properly. (I'm a Hindu for god sakes we cremate our dead.)

Hypocrites says the person asking to respect other payed plots and advocating that by putting shit on others plots without their consent.

That too fucking bad thing works both ways
"Oooh this family wants to put this custom tombstone in a place of rest, well that's not allowed so though shit"

I'm not offended by it maybe you could try understanding the wishes of the other families that have loved ones buried, instead of thinking that its just pretentiousness. But no the article doesn't focus on them so why the fuck should their opinion matter. I'm saying there should be compromise but you are against the idea that the other families would be unhappy seeing that tombstone in such a place of solemn and the cemetery has the right to regulate the area.
There are others wishes that play in this scenario I'm not asking for a complete override of the families wishes just a tombstone that isn't so out loud (heck even a much smaller version of the Spongebob statue would be okay) but you are getting really worked up over this.

 

[Sarge034]

Actually, the cemetery is on firm legal footing. Even after the contract is signed it may be terminated by either party and all exchanges returned. In short the family is left with exactly what they entered into the deal with.

Depends on what the contract laws are in Ohio, but regardless the cemetery can't return all exchanges. Not technically, at least. The cemetery is unable to return the funereal itself, as an event. One could make the argument that the event itself was a perishable good due to the nature of events (time constraints -the body of the deceased namely- and the associated costs -family/friends out of state travel, the wake, food, ect-). Contract law dealing with perishable good are a little different as after the item is consumed often times there is no way to back out of the contract. Think of it like a burger at a fast food franchise. If the order is wrong and you take a bite or two and realize it is wrong you can get the order fixed, but if you eat the whole thing you are not entitled to another burger made the way you wanted for free even thought he contract was not honored. It is considered a complaint after the goods were accepted by both parties and thus the statute of limitation closed out.

Or how about this. What if a cemetery has done the funeral and met the contractual obligations, but the family decides not to pay and void the contract after the fact because they didn't like the hue of grey that was on an employee's shirt? Sounds pretty stupid when this situation is turned around, don't it?

Remember this is not just about their plot, unlike houses, you can't build a privacy fence around a grave... well they could but the family would likely toss a fit about those graves being walled off from the rest of the cemetery.

You could very well treat it like a house. A privacy fence is only to obscure the view, so why can't we start looking at that option? Why don't they (the cemetery) offer to erect a small tent like structure over the headstone until they can come to an agreement? It would still be a dick move, but at least the cemetery wouldn't have basically desecrated the grave after the family left without telling them. And you don't know how the family would react to this option so don't use assumptions as a basis for an argument.

The family is of course free to find another cemetery to bury their daughters in.

And the cemetery is of course free to honor the contract they signed.

As for Spongebob. Look that headstone did look a bit tacky. I mean it's a great sculpture but a tacky headstone. That's just a matter of my personal taste but i'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

Does it look tacky to me? Sure does, but it aint my headstone. The only headstone I care about is the one over my head. I can not let my personal feelings of this headstone affect my reasons for defending it. It is the family's right to put whatever headstone they feel most accurately complies with their daughter's wishes so long as it is not illegal. I will remind you that making someone feel like you are desecrating a holy place or hurting people's feelings with your opinions is not illegal so long as you don't do it in an illegal manner. SpongeBob is not illegal, and a SpongeBob headstone is not illegal.

 

[level27smartass]

Thinking about this objective view point there have been far tackier headstones for example an entire monastery. From legal stand point the headstone was already approved by the cemetery so, they have that going for them. Personally I say keep it as testament that individuality can and should be preserved after death.