Get over it

Today, on a whim, I went to my state capitol building to see my state government and a vocal percent of the state populous in action. All over a sign that said there is no God. That's right, my state is the state of Washington, and I went to Olympia to see what the fuss was about.

For the record, while I support the right for the sign to be there, I do not support the message on the sign. It is to inflammatory for my taste and doesn't really say anything positive for the holidays.

For those that are unaware, this is an interesting turn of events in a long history of our state not publicly supporting religion. Both the Governor (a Democrat) and the State Attorney (A Republican) have made statements that they are following the Supreme Court ruling that they can put up displays as long as they let everyone that asks to display (within a set of guidelines). This reassures me that if one of the displays goes, all will go. But I thought I would go down and see the fuss for myself, and to make sure that just one sign wasn't taken down.

They did get lot of people there for the protest, they filled the steps at one point. I did manage to get by them to see the sign before they began and then I went outside to see the protest. At that point I heard someone saying "There better be no dirty atheists back here!" (meaning the top of the stairs) and decided that wasn't the best way to get back into the building. That and some of the signs convinced me that, despite of what the organizers of the event said, this wasn't a peaceful rally in some of the protesters minds. They where offended, and wanted to make it clear they thought their religion was the only one that mattered.

They couldn't even agree in how you get saved. At one point before the rally began there was a man preaching to the waiting crowd. At one point he said you must believe in Jesus to be forgiven, and some of the crowd shouted back that you must ask for forgiveness to be saved. This degraded to shouts of "Read your Bible" from both sides, with the man continued preaching until the start of the rally.

There where a few nice things about the protest, like when they sung Christmas carols, but mostly it was a cry that their God is real and that no atheist is going to take Christmas away. I didn't think a sign in the Capitol Building could do that, no matter how horrible the message was. Several times they would say they love Atheists, just before they would say something hateful about Atheists.

And speaking of the sign, it and all the other signs and display are behind a roped off area now with a state trouper guarding them. The nativity scene is on its own on one side with the the signs all on the other. Sad to say all of the signs are offensive, dumb or both. A few of the signs writers need to read up on history (we have not been celebrating Christmas for 2000 years, for example, nor was the country solely founded by people that believed in the Bible).

There where counter protesters there as well, with the signs "Get over it" on the steps of the Hall of Justice across the way. (oh the irony) At this point I wish that is what everyone would do about this.

Oh, and it is already in the news.

http://www.komonews.com/news/35678604.html