Earlier this week a group of atheists filed a lawsuit to take down a cross erected at the Lower Manhattan memorial to the victims of 9/11 .
According to the complaint filed in New York state court, the presence of the cross in a government-financed museum violates the country’s constitution by promoting Christianity, without mention of other religions.
While some individuals see the 9/11 cross – a creation consisting of intersecting steel beams found in the ground zero rubble – as a symbol of perseverance and faith, members of the American Atheists claim it provokes – and I am not making this up – “symptoms of depression, headaches, anxiety, and mental pain and anguish from the knowledge that they are made to feel officially excluded from the ranks of citizens who were directly injured by the 9/11 attack.”
Dave Silverman, president of the American Atheists organization, claims the answer to combating the “side-effects” of the cross is simple:
“What we’re looking for is a remedy that honours everyone equally, with a religion-neutral display, or display of equal size and prominence. They can allow every religious position to put in a symbol of equal size and stature, or they can take it all out, but they don’t get to pick and choose,” said Silverman.
So what type of “symbol” best represents all citizens equally?
According to Mr. Silverman, who also mentioned his group would pay for such a “universal” tribute, good symbols would be either a firefighter, carrying out a victim, or an atom, the basic building block of all matter, including humans.
Here is a video put together by the folks over at BreakThruRadio featuring various candid reactions to the WTC cross controversy.