Media Response to the Holmen Star Hill Controversy
Today, I circulated a press release with information about the Star Hill controversy. This concerns the Village of Holmen, Wisconsin, which decided to sell to the local Lion’s Club a small patch of public land on which a cross and a star are erected. The Lion’s Club will pay $600–despite the fact that the American Humanist Association offered $1,000 and the Freedom From Religion Foundation offered $1,200 for the land. This is because the Lion’s Club will keep the cross and star in the midst of government-owned property while the AHA and FFRF won’t. (Those of you who have followed the San Diego Mt. Soledad case should be pretty familiar with this new tactic.)
As an AHA staff member who deals with public policy, I’ve sent out quite a number of press releases during my tenure here. I’ve rarely ever received editorializing e-mails back from media people. However, today I received two of particular note:
From Daniel S. Brandenburg, Publisher/Editor of the Marion Advertiser
“Three Cheers for the Village of Holmen. I think I’ll use this as an editorial to give these leaders the credit they deserve.”
From Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of VCY America Radio Network
“Ha Ha Ha. This is great. Long live the Lions Club and kudos to the village board of Holmen, Wisconsin. God bless America.”
Clearly, we have a lot of church-state educating yet to do.
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According to wikipedia the Lions International are a secular organisation. It therefore follows that they cannot own land, nor can they use Lions funds to make such a purchase on which a predominantly xian symbol stands because this could cause offence to those Lions who are not xian.
Perhaps the HQ of Lions should be made aware of how their funds are being used.