Web: nyc-atheists.org
Press contact: 212-879-2687
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NEW YORK—The so-called “miracle cross” that now dominates Ground Zero discriminates against all the Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics and others who died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers, says New York City Atheists president Kenneth Bronstein.
Moreover, the cross isn’t a “miracle,” says Bronstein, “It’s just a couple of rusty girders, one of hundreds just like it that were found after the Twin Towers fell. After all, the Twin Towers were built with thousands of such T-shaped girders. That a worker resurrected one of these girders and dubbed it a Christian cross is an affront to all of us who believe in our Constitutionally based right to have public places free of religious propaganda and religious coercion.”
Enough time has now passed, Bronstein says, so that those of us who once could not bear to think of anything but our losses on 9/11 may now consider our rededication to the freedoms our country stands for. “And one of those freedoms provided by our Constitution is freedom from religion. A cross on public property is a violation of our Constitution’s firmness on the separation of church and state.
“Now there is a move to incorporate this so-called cross into a permanent memorial for the victims of 9/11—a totally inappropriate move in the eyes of those of us who honor our Constitution.”
The move to put the 20-foot-high debris cross into a permanent memorial constitutes the “hijacking of our Constitutional rights by those insensitive to the diversity of beliefs and non-beliefs in our country. To have a Christian cross as a symbol of the courage and indomitable will of our citizens who rallied after the terrorist attacks pins a label on this courage that excludes the millions of Jews, Atheists, Muslims, Agnostics and others who support, and pay taxes in, this country. Will the Ground Zero Memorial include a Jewish star or an Atheist ‘A’ made of rusty girders? Yet hundreds of Jews and Atheists died in the attack,” Bronstein points out.
The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation opens itself up to legal battles over this violation of the rights of American citizens to be free of what we feel is religious labeling and religious coercion on public property, Bronstein warns.
New York City Atheists is a non-profit educational and action association open to non-believers and believers of all stripes including atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, skeptics and those who are questioning and searching. NYCA is an affiliate of American Atheists.
For further information, call Kenneth Bronstein at 212-535-7425.