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Burning Jesus
NMB, Florida November 3, 2001 A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.
BURNING JESUS
It is interesting to note the reasoning used by the Virginia Supreme Court
in its 4-3 vote allowing burning crosses as an issue of freedom of speech.
Burning a cross by a redneck crowd cannot surely be just a symbol of their
love of Jesus who was crucified. It has historically been used by marginal
people and abused by their political leaders to cow those who see it and
have used it as a weapon of power against a racial minority. This has been
its only history and justification.
It is meant to frighten a racial minority or that minority's allies and it
may also be looked upon as self-hatred. All those who express love of Jesus
who died for their sins are unable to see this as another death for the
"Son of God". Jesus who died nailed to a cross, from the first the symbol
of Christianity, is symbolically burned to a crisp each time the followers
of hate mistake their use of the Christian cross to intimidate a group of
victims.
A crazed man (a Turk) shot the present Pope. A crazed man (an Italian
Catholic) took a bludgeon and bashed the magnificent Pieta of Michelangelo.
Groups of southern white men burned and bombed Black churches killing little
children. These equally employ twisted symbolisms of hatred and psychotic
reasoning and are not freedom of speech. The twisted cross, the
"hackencruze" of the swastika used by the Nazi Party in Germany to rise to
power, used it to borrow the symbol of Jesus on that cross to justify their
persecution of those whom they announced were their enemies. Political
warfare meant warfare against a people, a religion, a race or their
opposition within their party.
There are limits. I am sympathetic to the aims of the ACLU and a proud
secular Humanist. But, I am also a Jew who has been called "Jew-boy" and
not in endearing terms. If slurs hurt a Black child; if a follower of Islam
is threatened; if an Indian woman is slammed because of her tattoo or if a
woman is demeaned because of her sex I am also discriminated against. It is
discrimination of a particularly odious sort and the Virginia Supreme Court
is shamed when it undermines our tradition of freedom for all from attacks
like these. Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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