"The President’s decision to alter the policy governing the display of the cross inside Wren Chapel has sparked a vigorous and passionate debate about religion, history, tradition, values and diversity"

Rather than alter the policy, the President should resign and find work at a more "secular" institution.

Removing a cross from a Christian Chapel.
Brilliant, just freaking brilliant.
Go to get that place less faith-specific. Yesiree, no room for faith in that chapel!
What next, Star of David to be removed from the Synagogue?

Looks like the slope has been awfully slippery for a while now over at William and Mary.

Looks like W&M is pretty secular.

Jefferson must be pinwheeling in his grave.

Is the chapel going to be used by different religious groups? Perhaps they're worshiping strippers now.

They should ask new US Senator Jim Webb what he is going to do about this. William and Mary is a state school, which I recently learned to my surprise.

Let's see if the new Senator will put his money where is very opiniated mouth his. I just finished reading his nook "Born Fighting," which is actually quite terrific. But in it, he idolizes Andrew Jackson, the first populist president. Virginia's history is hardly secular.

They should run the President out on a rail for his tolerant doublespeak, never mind his boneheaded decision to remove a cross from a Christian chapel.

The inmates are running the asylum.

What do you think would happen if someone forced a hindu university to put in a McDonalds restaurant that serves beef? They'd kick said persons ass to the curb.... why is it that our western religious traditions are disrespected so much now?

Slippery slope eh? Must have been a KY jelly spill at the stripper's convention. ~:D

The theatre of the absurd...

These people need to be laughted at. Their egos are so fragile, they might just implode - problem solved.

Kate: Is this a Mike Adams guest post? Or are you increasing the calibre of your shot and widening its blast radius? :-)

Given that they want to remove the Cross and substituted a sex toys show for what they are really interested in; it is surprising they haven't started worshiping Astarte or Ishtar.

Next they will have temple prostitutes and sex on the altar.

Same old BS, different millenia.

Cuz its so important to retain that vital separation of church and er, church.

Priceless.

Until more and more people start to wake up to the pure propagandistic indoctrination of modern academia the right faces a continuing up hill battle.

Finally, and importantly, the Board believes William and Mary is and should be a diverse and welcoming place to all students from around the Commonwealth and around the globe. This should be the message that is projected to prospective students and the outside world.

Bingo. The money quote. I can guarantee it's not local Jewish kids or Israelis on campus bitching about the cross. It's not Buddhist students from Asia bitching about the cross either. So, who have we got left standing? You can bet the offended are the lefty pc fascists on the faculty in the usual perpetually enraged victim studies departments. And, you can bet that the only students recruited from overseas that this level of concern extends to are perpetually offended Muslims.

Here's where the left with their perpetual intolerance compliments Islam with their perpetual intolerance.

I have more respect for outright terrorists than the smarmy weasels that undermine our democracy and culture without the guts to just come out and admit they hate everything about us. It's death by a thousand paper cuts from these lefty monsters versus one explosive at a time by the other enemy. Take your pick.

"...that included a dildo shaped like a gun"

Interesting. In todays world, on the grounds of most any other school, college, university, or other institution of learning banishing or just possessing ANYTHING that resembled a weapon would get one arrested and expelled. And would probably also gain a visit from Homeland Security.

I guess no one wanted to interrupt the *show*. Maybe she was considered a straight shooter.

Somewhat related, Ontario's Ministry of Transportation turns down well-known Mississauga realtor's request for a vanity license plate.

The request?

EH MEN2U

The Ministry says it's offensive to non-Christians.

http://www.mississauganews.com/mi/news/pictorial/story/3879136p-4487029c.html

Why not ack the campus muslim community to remove the cresent moon and star from their temple to "make it more welcoming" to those of other faiths.

Really...reasoning like this needs to be mocked...the rationalle meeded to assume anyone goin into a Christian chaple would be offended by the symbols of that faith defies human reason.

Then again the forces of politically correct masochism in our society are a cult not defined by "reason".

When me and my pals want to worship strippers, we tend to congregate at their "church", not ours.

Mississauga Matt,

What would you bet that the snivel servants at the Min of Trans wouldn't have any problem at all with a vanity plate request with some phonetic variant of "Allah u Akbar"?

"What next, Star of David to be removed from the Synagogue?

No, RF, not quite.

Under today's enlightened groupthink, a synagogue would be banned from campus, to make everything more "inclusive" to those of the ROP(TM).

Really, considering the West's preoccupation with self-loathing and debasement, not to mention our systemic dismantling of our history, culture and religion, this "news" isn't all that surprising.

We're simply reaping what we've sown.

mhb23re
[at gmail d0t calm]

Satan is alive and well and doing just fine here in the West.

Evidence again that one can be so 'open-minded' that the brains fall out.
That psychobabble in the first statement(Feb 7) sounds very familiar...is the writer Canadian...from Tranna?

May their sins be forgiven for they know not what they do.

Sarge here. Oh yeah, jefferson is rolling in his grave all right, but probably not for the reasons you dipsticks are ...maybe you kanukistani need to do a little research?

while yer at it, check the qoutes from corporal schicklegrubber at the bottom of this post...

A professorship of theology should have no place in our institution.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, October 7, 1814, referring to the University of Virginia

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Woods (undated), referring to "our particular superstition," Christianity, from John E Remsburg, Six Historic Americans: Thomas Jefferson, quoted from Franklin Steiner, Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents (1936), "Thomas Jefferson, Freethinker"

... [A] short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Samuel Kercheval, 1810 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section

If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a reply to John Adams' letter, quoted by Joseph Lewis in his address "Jefferson the Freethinker," delivered at a banquet of the Freethinkers' Society of New York on the evening of April 13th, 1925, at Hotel Belleclaire, 77th Street and Broadway, New York City, in honor of the 182nd anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson.

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:546

"Ministers of the Gospel are excluded [from serving as Visitors of the county Elementary Schools] to avoid jealousy from the other sects, were the public education committed to the ministers of a particular one; and with more reason than in the case of their exclusion from the legislative and executive functions." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:419

"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:425

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle."
-Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.

[SNIPPED - if you want to post essay length comments in response to an issue, get your own blog. -ED]

"The Royal Charter called for a center of higher education consisting of three schools: the Grammar School, the Philosophy School and the Divinity School. The Philosophy School instructed students in the advanced study of moral philosophy (logic, rhetoric, ethics) as well as natural philosophy (physics, metaphysics, and mathematics); upon completion of this coursework, the Divinity School prepared these young men for ordination into the Church of England."

Ok so you have a Divinity School but you don't want a cross in the chapel; but you ordain ministers for the Church of England. Brilliant!

sarge: While the quotes from Thomas Jefferson are interesting, you lose the debate as you invoked quotes from Adolf.

If you are going to discuss the school, then it might be useful to look at the founding documents, rather than just its former students.

"William and Mary has a number of traditions, including the Yule Log Ceremony, at which the president dresses as Santa Claus and reads a rendition of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," or other holiday texts."

So Saint Nicholas is okay but GOD FORBID having a cross in HEAVENS a CHAPEL!!!

THE SCANDAL, THE HORROR, REDEMPTION MUST BE BANNED!!

Sarge, nice Godwin's Law violation.

What church did Hitler go to every Sunday? Seriously: can you tell me its name and the name of the pastor? Just curious.

No wonder Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are reluctant to publicize their plans for ending the Iraq war but why Ted Kennedy so strongly endorses it.

The Latest Democratic Plan

Cono Snatch Zubobinskaya, clad initially in military fatigues, gave a theatrical performance that included a dildo shaped like a gun. Her anti-war message was that sexual favors would be given if "doing so can end the war. Just don't force me."

"dipstick" to sarge, Jefferson had no problem with religion in the public square, he and the signers of the Constitution had a problem with the state assigning a specific religion to the public square. Their intent was to avoid a Church of England situation. But, sarge wouldn't get that because sarge isn't an attorney or in law school or a US history major or very well read. Here's a hint, want to learn about Jefferson and his thought processes, read Dumas Malone, his definative biographer.

Your cut and paste polemic completely misses that constitutional point. We've pretty much got your reading comprehension skills nailed down. Why a person needs a third person shtik I'll leave to a psychiatrist. And, the quotes from Mein Kampf just aren't working out for you.

"A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a
document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of
the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me
infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they
draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its Author never said nor
saw." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Thompson, 1816.

While I am a firm er..I mean a strong supporter of strippers and a secular society, but I can't see the point of forcing a cross out of a Christian church. What is going on here? Is the West's collective brain imploding?

If it is OK for academia to ridicule and dictate to one religious group won't it be just a matter of time before another group comes after their most sacred beleifs? Has reason abandoned the halls of academia? This is disturbing.

Umm...actually, the individual states are free to set up a state religion, if that is their wish. It is just at the federal level that such is prohibited.

A woman named Dirty Martini did a striptease. Weighing in at well over 200 pounds, she finished her routine wearing only a G-string and pasties.

To cries of "Put it ON!" and "AUGH! My EYES!"

"A woman named Dirty Martini did a striptease. Weighing in at well over 200 pounds, she finished her routine wearing only a G-string and pasties." Pass the eye bleach please. I'll probably need 2 vi*gr* tonight to counter the effects of that mental image.

I honestly think there must be something in the water that the west is drinking (koolaid?) because everywhere you look someone is changing/altering something lest there be some perceived insult. To heck with traditions and history. Somehow I think even Buddhist monks would lose their cool if some leftoid went over to visit a Buddhist Temple and demanded that the Statue of Buddha be removed because it wasn't all inclusive.

Just as the climate change issue is an attack on science because scientists will sink to dishonesty in order to advance a political agenda; and just as the business community often decries the lack of educational skills college graduates bring to the real world; so the desire to remove the cross is an attack on the liberal arts and the foundation of literacy itself.

Under the pretext of trying to cause a chapel to be more inclusive, they remove a symbol that has universal meaning. So either they are not aware of the universal meaning of the cross, which makes them illiterate, or they are aware of the universal meaning, making them professional propagandists.

The symbolism of the cross is sacred to Christianity and yet is a much older symbol with connotations studied in both the history of religions and comparative religions.

The cross can be considered as the axis mundi, a way of symbolizing the center of the world. In this respect it has relationship to the intentions of the Norse Tree of Yggdrasil, Jacob's Ladder, the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Throughout religion and myth from the primitive to sophisticated cultures, such a symbol exists.

Maurice Eliade says that it is part of a:
"sequence of religious conceptions and cosmological images that are inseparately connected and form a system that may be called the 'system of the world:' ...
a) a sacred place constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space;
b) this break is symbolized by an opening by which passages from one cosmic region to another is made possible (from heaven to earth and vice versa; from earth to the underworld);
c) communication with heaven is expressed by one or another of certain images, all which refer to the axis mundi: pillar (universalis columna); ladder (Jacob's ladder); mountain, tree, vine, etc.;
d) around this cosmic axis lies the world (our world), hence the axis is located 'in the middle, the navel of the earth.' It is the center of the world.

Many differents myths, rites, and beliefs are derived from this 'system of the world.'"
-- Maurice Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, the Nature of Religion

The "world navel" is also a very important symbol in this regard.

So in addition to being a sacred symbol for Christianity, the cross can also be seen in a universal context about which many volumes could be written. The symbolism virtually scans the ontological, mythological context in which the human mind engages the Sacred from a religious point of view.

And you know Carl Jung said that a real symbol, and not just a sign, actually participates in the nature of the mystery that it depicts.

OK, so this is pretty far-out stuff for people who have not done much reading along these lines. My point is simply that William and Mary being a university is the very place that such literacy should be stressed and taught.

It is quite obvious that their problem is not with the cross because it is not "inclusive" enough. Obviously the cross is an enormously inclusive symbol. So they are either stupid or they are out and out perpetrators of fraud posing as an educational institution.

They might as well be part of a de-literacy machine in the old Soviet system.

One interpretation I appreciated, probably because it's neat and concise enough for me to understand, is the cross representing the intersection of the temporal, human plane and the divine.
I remember trying to relate that to a religous woman at party years ago, trying to make an impression, but was too pissed to get it across. Not a proud moment. Lotsa irony, though.

The wren chappel a good place to see tweet tweet chirp chirp

I have to wonder why all these people are quoting Jefferson with respect to William & Mary anyway. Jefferson founded the University of Virginia: William and Mary was already over 100 years old by then.

Words fail me.

And I'm not even going near the subject of a 200-lb striptease "artiste." I'm going out for a nice pub lunch here in London today and I want my appetite intact, thank you.

On vanity plates though, I'm reminded that when they first came out in Ontario, the MOT had a computer verification programme to ensure naughty or unacceptable words were properly screened.

One guy wanted the word WOMEN and, after consideration, the MOT said fine.

Only once the plate was produced was the true genius of his choice revealed:

ONTARIO
WOMEN
YOURS TO DISCOVER

...God has given them over to their vices.

Enjoy it folks. The Leftoids have taken over our Halls of Higher Learning as well as our Schools from Kindergarten through High School, influencing and brainwashing our kids.

We have sat back and let it roll and now we have the products of the various systems to deal with.
It's one fine cocked up mess, a SNAFU of major proportions.