December 4, 2007

No, This Is Not An Assault On Christianity (Updated)

I didn’t even know that Los Angeles County’s seal even had a cross on it, so I also didn’t know that the County Supervisors voted to remove it in 2004. They did so fearing a suit for violation of the Establishment Clause – and promptly got sued for being hostile to Christianity. There is a great mental short-circuit that goes into filing such a lawsuit, I would think – “You no longer give me special recognition, therefore you’re discriminating against me now.” Well, there’s no cross there now, and that’s as it should be.

Update: Added the picture of the two seals.

3 comments:

zzi said...

The cross represented the Missions, which is part of Los Angeles history.
And why is the typeface changing from post to post?

Burt Likko said...

Huh. I wouldn't have inferred that fact from the old seal. It looked like the Hollywood Bowl was being turned in to Golgotha.

I think the new seal does a better job than the old one of representing the missions. You can see both seals here, side-by-side, and draw your own conclusions.

As for the appearance of the blog, I'm trying to keep the typefaces standardized with ten-point Arial; footnotes should be in eight-point Arial. Guess I'm not doing a good job.

Orange Phantom said...

hmmm, I understand your position. But to deny that Christianity was the source of the missions may be construed as a revision of history. How many missions (of peace) have the Muslims done, or the Jews? None that I know of.

So here is the question as I see it, and it's not a question of separation. It's a question of revisionist history. I think the cross should remain as Christianity was the source of the missions. If the Jews for example initiated the missions, then the Star of David should be on the seal. And that would not bother me.

I thought our constitution prevented the government from endorsing a religion, not denying it.....