from the Detroit Free Press:
Write-in hopeful defends crecheNativity scene back as a values issue for City Council race
October 15, 2007
BY BILL LAITNER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Debate is back in Berkley on whether religious symbols should sit outside City Hall.
On Nov. 6, voters are to decide on a charter amendment to return a Christian nativity scene to public land.
Running unopposed until last week had been Mayor Marilyn Stephan, who sided with a council vote last year to remove the nativity scene under threat of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.
But Stephan's election cakewalk ended Thursday, when former mayor Maybelle Fraser filed to run as a write-in candidate. Fraser's name won't be on ballots, which already had been printed, but she's well ahead of the Oct. 26 deadline for write-ins, City Clerk Karen Brown said.
Fraser, 76, was on the City Council in 1989-93, returning as mayor from 1995 to 1997.
On Friday, she said she wanted to revive "the values we have here," including a City Hall-based depiction of Jesus' birth.
Of her opponent, she said, "I don't think there will be any barbs thrown. I just don't agree with her decisions, especially on the nativity scene."
Stephan, 73, and in her eighth year on the council -- including the last two as mayor -- said Friday that she and the council majority felt good about their 6-1 vote in October 2006 to give the nativity scene to the Berkley Area Clergy Association. It was displayed last year downtown on the lawn of Berkley First United Methodist Church on West 12 Mile.
"And there wasn't a snowman or a choo-choo train beside it" and "there weren't gift boxes all lit up -- which we would've had to put up with if we'd kept it at City Hall," Stephan said, referring to federal court decisions that require placing secular symbols beside religious displays on public land.
Some residents, including Councilman Dale GoodCourage, have objected to having secular symbols with the nativity scene. Yet ACLU lawyers told the city it needed secular symbols to comply with the law. .....(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710150317Check out some of the reader comments on the story. Proof positive that the average citizen is much smarter than the average elected official:
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chin music
As a Berkley resident, I find this whole flap about a religious symbol to be hilarious. The original complainant who objected to the religious symbols on public property was, and remains a citizen of Berkley, as are the majority of city council and the whole clergy association, who all oppose it. Yet, the "vote yes" crowd continues to refer to "outside groups" interfering with Berkley affairs. I guess that they are referring to the ultra right-wing Thomas Moore center and the many non-residents of Berkley that are providing most of their support.
Our family plans to vote NO on this silly nonsense, because if a nativity scene is displayed on public property, it must be accompanied by secular items and other religions must be allowed to place their own symbols on the same property with equal status, by order of the Supreme Court. However, if the proposal passes, it could be very entertaining. I would very much like to be around the leaders of the proposal when somebody insists on their right to put a Wicken symbol or marijuana leaf out there with baby Jesus. I'll bet their heads will explode.
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:34 pm
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RGoffeney
I don't understand why the "Vote Yes" folks would want to cheapen the Nativity display by crowding it 'round with Santa, Rudolf and a host of secular Christmas stuff. If the "Vote Yes" proponents were TRULY concerned about the sanctity of our Nativity display, they would be delighted by the solution worked out by the City Council and ALL the Berkley Clergy last year, giving the Nativity the prominence it deserves, on our main street.
I think the "Vote Yes" folks have good intentions, but I suspect they're being manipulated by the radical Thomas More Law Center. Don't let outsiders drag the City of Berkley into their Culture Wars - vote NO and let Berkley go back to being Berkley
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:42 am
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