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Atheist group fights Holocaust memorial
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| Contributor | Penguin |
| Last Edited | Penguin Jul 23, 2013 06:14pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Wednesday, July 24, 2013 12:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | A proposed new Holocaust memorial in Ohio has found itself in the midst of surprising opposition – because its critics object to its inclusion of Jewish imagery.
The Columbus monument was designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, the Poland-born son of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Libeskind, in addition to having a deeply personal connection with the project, is also a big deal. He’s designed museums and towers around the world. He’s the guy they picked to redesign Ground Zero. His new memorial’s design features two walkways that lead toward a pair of panels that form a cut-out Star of David. And, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s co-president Dan Barker says, that’s a problem. “Since the Star of David is a religious symbol and a secular government is not supposed to be promoting religion,” he says, “especially when there are other perfectly secular alternatives, we’re objecting to that religious symbol.”
In June, the organization sent a letter to the memorial committee’s chairman Richard H. Finan, stating that “while it is important to memorialize the Holocaust,” the star’s “prominent inclusion in the memorial gives the impression of an endorsement of Judaism” and represents “a design with constitutional concerns.” The letter goes on to complain that the Star is “exclusionary, ignoring the sacrifices made by many other groups targeted by the Nazis.” And here’s the ballsiest part: it wraps up by saying that to honor one religion “would dishonor the truest protection our country has against a similar holocaust on our shores, the precious constitutional principle separating religion and government. Had there been a separation between religion and state honored and enforced in Germany, ensuring government could not favor the dominant religion and persecute and scapegoat minority religion and other ‘dissidents,’ there would not have been a Holocaust.” |
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