Vulcan Statue, Alabama State Fairgrounds 1910Even if Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore is a cynic, certainly not all of his supporters are. Some of them are sincere about wanting to use the government to cram their brand of Christianity down the throats of the rest of us, including other Christians, who don't understand the affairs of the Almighty in exactly the way they do.
I had occasion last week to read a few issues of the Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi [Southern] Baptist Convention. (It doesn't seem to be available online.)
A piece in the 08/21/03 issue by Tony Martin is pretty lightweight. He relies on such arguments as suggesting that the statue of Vulcan in Birmingham, Alabama, not be allowed on public land because the ancient Romans once worshipped him as a god.
He doesn't mention it, but maybe Tony is also scandalized by the statue's famously nekkid hiney. John Ashcroft would melt the thing down for that reason alone!
At the risk of giving undeserved credibility to an airhead argument, I'll point out that Vulcan is a god only in a long-dead religion. Now, I realize that somewhere in California or Ashville, NC, there are probably a few Vulcan worshippers. But I doubt that any Church of Vulcan has applied for tax-exempt status in the US.
Government promotion of the dominant religion is a whole different thing.
Okay, maybe there is a Church of Vulcan. I'm thinking from Ashville.
- Posted by Bruce Miller 09/03/03
Tags: birmingham, roy moore, vulcan statue
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