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In Montana, a Fight Over Separation of Church and Fairgrounds
By Tess Civantos
Published August 11, 2010
FoxNews.com
MISSOULA COUNTY, Mont. – Leaders of a Christian organization are convinced a group of atheists were successful in getting annual fellowship services moved from the Missoula County Fair, but church organizers say they’re determined to make the best of their new location.
Still, churchgoers who worship at the service resent that any group could get them relocated.
Sunday morning church is a long-standing tradition at the Missoula County Fair, thanks to the Missoula Christian Network’s planning. But that tradition fell by the wayside this year after complaints from a national atheist group, which called the service “a violation of civil rights.”
Rebecca Markert, staff attorney for the atheist/agnostic group Freedom From Religion, said, “Anyone who went to the church service received free admission to the county fair, which is a violation of the Civil Rights Act. It discriminates against non-churchgoers.”
As you will see, this is a willfull misstatement by the atheists.
Freedom From Religion sent a letter to the Missoula County Board of Commissioners, urging them to “discontinue these discriminatory actions by eliminating the Christian service altogether at this year’s County Fair.”
According to Steve Earle, director of the Missoula County Fairgrounds, the churchgoers did receive free admission – but so did every other Sunday morning fair attendee. The fair does not offer churchgoers any special privileges, Earle told FoxNews.com.
“We have a tradition of doing ‘community days’ on Sundays, with an open gate until noon, to beef up the crowd,” Earle said. “It’s open to anyone and it’s not related to any religious service.”
Fair organizers moved this year’s church service from the fairgrounds to nearby Ogren-Allegiance Park, a baseball stadium that is outside the confines of the county fair, which runs from August 10-15. That decision, according to Earle, had to do with a scheduling conflict and not Freedom From Religion’s complaint.
I'm Sooooo sure.
“We’re already talking about having a Christian worship service next year on Sunday morning,” Earle said.
Michael Burks, a Missoula County businessman who helped plan the church service in the baseball stadium, spoke out against Freedom From Religion’s civil rights complaint.
“Christians don’t want to be against anyone,” Burks said. “For people to tell us to ‘Go back in your church and shut the door,’ for an organization to tell us we can’t get together for this service, is unconstitutional. If it was a Buddhist prayer service or a gay pride parade, I wouldn’t tell them they couldn’t meet somewhere. This is not what America’s about.”
“I don’t understand honestly why Freedom From Religion got involved,” Burks said, noting that the group is not based in Montana, but in Wisconsin. “They’re trying to make it sound like you have to go to the service to get free admission to the fair, but you don’t. Hopefully, clarification will fix it.”
They get involved because it is not enough for them to separate themselves from God; they want everyone else to have the same hopeless view of the afterlife as they do. Traditions, the desires of the community, the health of the nation, none of that matters to them, as long as they can convince one antagonistic mind to bitch.
Keith Mobley, a pastor with the Missoula Christian Network, said, “There are people in this town that are very anti-Christ, anti-religion, anti-Church. You could say this is Liberal-ville, Montana. But we’re not going to let some out-of-state group tell us we can’t meet at our county fair to worship.”
Markert, however, says her group is acting on behalf of Missoula’s own citizens, and at least one of them specifically asked the group to intervene.
“We’re a membership organization and we act on protests from our members,” Markert said. “We received a complaint from a member in Missoula County.”
And this is my point: It only takes one person with a dissenting opinion, although it seems it has to be a liberal/pc/atheist opinion, to ruin something for everyone. That's not protecting minorities, it is TYRANNY of the minority, and it goes a long way to explain why this once-proud nation is so f-'ed up.
Meanwhile, Mobley is hopeful the church service will return to next year’s County Fair.
“If the churches had really wanted to, we could’ve had the service,” Mobley said. “And we plan to next year.”
In the meantime, the church-service organizers and attendees are enjoying their temporary exile from the Missoula County Fair.
“Honestly I’m not too upset about the change of venue,” Burks said. “Where the church service was originally located [at the county fair] was far from concessions and parking. There was no seating. This is a test run, but the new location is much more convenient and comfortable. We’re even getting games and jumpers for the kids so people don’t need to find baby-sitting.”
“It’s the whole making lemonade from lemons thing,” Burks said.
And that is a reminder of Galatians 6:7, people: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. "
I don't really have much to say on this story.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I can tell from the information given I actually agree with you. As long as the church event was in a open forum, wasn't being funded by government tax dollars, and they weren't forcing their beliefs on anyone that didn't want them, then there's no reason why they should have been forced to move to a different location.
As for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I tend to like their actions. They are a organization that helps safeguard the separation of church and state. Sometimes they tend to get a little carried away (as it appears in this case.)
I can't really comment further on this story until I have more information. I tend not to trust anything that Fox New says without first confirming it with other sources. Fox news has a horrible track record of being more than a little biased and trusting unreliable sources.
If I can find some free time I'll check up on this story and comment further.
Thanks for the interesting read
Alright. I've read a few other articles on the story. As I thought Foxnews.com has blow things way out of proportion.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I can gather from other sites The Freedom from Religion Foundation received several complaints (The exact number is a mystery. Although most sites seem to agree that the number was over 2. Fox News is the only site that I found that puts the number at 1) that the church event at the local fair was offering free admission to members of the church (Which is a violation of the Civil Rights Act). So far Fox News appears to be the only one disputing that claim. The FFRF sent a letter to the county officials telling them of the complaints that they received. The county officials agreed with them and talked to the church about it.
As for the changes in venue, that appears the be due to laziness. According to the event planners they just ran out of time and were unable to schedule the event. The other Christian event "Jump for Jesus" is still taking place at the fair, and the worship event is set to take place again next year.
I'll continue to look up more information, but as far as I can tell it's just a misunderstanding on Fox's part
Fox didn't actually say one person complained if you look closely. I said one to draw out the contrast when one, 2 or more can get things done to Christian events at will where all of our righteous pleading doesn't make a difference.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I will grant you that Fox is often guilty of sensationalizing or just plain fudging reports. Their major good point is at least it gets to the MSM this way.
I wish that the Freedom from religion group would do something that would benefit all America- making a stand against the damnable mosque they want to put at ground zero. I don't know if they are or not and am afraid to check. Anytime I go on sites like that I end up on Mailing lists.
Glad to see we agree on some things...
Oh, and if I can point you back to the article:
ReplyDelete"According to Steve Earle, director of the Missoula County Fairgrounds, the churchgoers did receive free admission – but so did every other Sunday morning fair attendee. The fair does not offer churchgoers any special privileges, Earle told FoxNews.com". So I guess ask the other sites why they didn't consult with the fairground director. As usual in these things, there's a lot of people putting just what suits them to the story. If you get a chance, send me your main source(s) and thanks for the imput.
Check out this article from the local paper.
ReplyDeletehttp://missoulian.com/news/local/article_8a0ffcd2-a29f-11df-9e04-001cc4c03286.html. It looks like a lot of mismanagement, people getting involved when they were not needed, -and one (1) complainant.