In Independence, Virginia, Laura George wants to build a "Peace Pentagon" -- a retreat where leaders from different religious traditions can meet to discuss their differences. Unfortunately the local fundamentalist Christians are outraged at the prospect of non-Christians coming in and interacting with Christians as if they were equals.
Laura George had secured permission for her building plans, but that permission was quickly revoked after a meeting where local Christian bigotry was laid bare for the world to see.
It's not uncommon for spiritual groups to face resistance from the local community, whether over parking, traffic, noise or other concerns. Whether the board in Grayson voted on zoning concerns -- supervisors did not comment on the case -- one thing is certain: The surrounding community did not welcome George's idea.
"I'm glad it didn't come," Rhonda James of Mouth of Wilson said. She added that everyone she knows opposed the Oracle Institute because, they believe, it seems to question the word of God in the Bible. "I'm a Christian, fundamentalist Christian, and so are most people in the area."
Eddie Roland, pastor of Brush Creek Baptist Church, stood up at the meeting with his Bible in hand and said the proposed center "stands against the word of God. I believe it's contradictory to it. I believe it's diametrically opposed to what this book right here stands for."
At one point a supervisor reminded speakers that they could not vote based on religious reasons. Some supervisors said it didn't seem consistent with the community, it could ruin the views along the river and asked about the road leading into it. One proposed rejecting it for the health, safety and welfare of the county.
The supervisors voted against the center, including one who had previously approved it in his role on the county planning commission.
Source: The Washington Post
It's hard not to see local politicians here grasping at straws for any legal-sounding excuse they can find to oppose the project. Unfortunately, the rank bigotry of the residents will make it harder for them to convince others that their decision was neutral and fair. Even other conservative Christians can see that what's going on is wrong -- and it's the Rutherford Institute of all places that's helping Laura George:
It's clearly a violation of the First Amendment, said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil liberties group that is helping George.
"There's just a lot of hate out there. The fear that someone like this coming into the county with 10 cabins on the water is going to do something dramatic to the community . . . this is part of the religious wars we're seeing, no doubt about that," he said.
It's significant I think that no other conservative Christian legal organizations have stepped up to do the right thing in this case. There are several that proclaim their fidelity to principles of religious freedom, but you never see them even so much as issue a press release in defense of non-Christians shoe rights are being infringed upon, much less offer advice and services.
This makes them little different from the bigots in the story above: concerned with religious liberty for Christians but not at all with the religious liberty of anyone else. In the end, that means they don't really care about religious liberty at all -- they only care about their own tribe's privileges no matter what happens to anyone else.
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