I don’t know who to pit first; the mayor of Cranston or the ACLU. We’ll start with the mayor. It reads better that way.
Cranston, Rhode Island is one of those cities that got hit hard by both recession and extremely bad financial mismanagement. It was so bad and they were so deep in debt that their bond rating had pretty much permanently settled into junk status or lower, if there is anything lower. So, they voted in a guy named Steve Laffey; a non-politician, business guy, reform candidate. Yep … we go us some of dat reeee-form. And for a while he did okay. Took on the unions and came out a clear winner. Started really looking into where Cranston’s money was going and started making some serious changes.
Things like that can really go to your head.
Every Christmas season you’ve always got one story about some official clown who decides to put up a holiday display on public property and gets his ass handed to him by the courts because of separation of church and state. Of course, this being Rhode Island we have to put our own little bizarre twist on things. I keep telling people “This is Rhode Island. You can’t make up stuff this weird.” We once had a governors election where the two candidates were named Myrth York and Lincoln Almond. York began giving out York Peppermint Patties as part of her campaign. Not to be outdone, Almond began giving out Almond Joys. That Hallowe’en we not only has to check the kids bags for poisoned Snickers Bars and apples in the razor blades, we also had to keep a sharp eye out for subtle political advertising as well.
This is a state where one candidate legally changed his name from Russo to aaRusso to insure first place on the Johnston mayoral ballot.
I digress.
Mayor Laffey decided this was his year to be the official clown but he decided to do things differently and maybe circumvent every state law and ruling that has ever come down about religious displays on public grounds. He says that anyone who wants to put up their own display on the town hall lawn can do so. That way it isn’t really an “official” display and everyone can be happy.
Oh wait … there’s a catch. The display has to be approved by … you guessed it … the mayor.
For the time being we’ll pass over the idea of a government official passing judgement on what religious display is appropriate and what is not because the story gets better.
Another local clown, artiste and designer of sex toys (I swear, I’m not making this up) decides to challenge the mayor’s stance and sneaks over one night and puts up twelve pink flamingos in Santa Clause hats calling himself the Church of the Flamingo. The mayor, probably realizing that he has to recognize this or be called a religious bigot decides that they can stay. He calls the guys bluff. So, one of our local radio talk show hosts dares the guy that if he really wants to challenge the mayor he should put up a display of his dildos in Christmas decoullage.
Thankfully he, feeling that the point has been made, declines. I think eventually a selection of dildos did show up on the lawn along with a collection of rubber duckies and well, what with all the junk and the menorah and the dread pirate Jesus creche it got to look like an explosion at a particularly bizarre circus.
But the way the mayor is handling it one gets the idea that there’s more to this than he’s letting on. It’s a win-win situation for him. Either way, he’s the guy who defended Christmas! But one senses that it’s not so much because of any deep seated beliefs that he has rather than his need to be on the front pages of the newspaper as often as possible. Dare we note that we have another gubernatorial election coming up?
(As a side rant, I should not that this was all being talked about during drive time talk radio while I was picking up my son for his daily visit. Even with all the problems he has, Sean is a very inquisitive kid and it was a lot of fun trying to explain to him what a Christmas dildo was.)
I’d had enough at this point. Apparently so had the ACLU.
I’ve always been a big fan of the ACLU. I know they take some fairly unpopular positions every now and then, but I think taken as a whole, when they do err they err on the side of human rights which is always a good side to be on. So when I hear that they’re going to be on the radio, I think “Aha … here comes the calvary to explain why any government playing around with religion is a bad idea.”
Um, no.
The local ACLU clown comes on the air and his main point has nothing to do with separation of church and state. No, his main objection to the whole circus is that all of the pink flamingos and what not trivialize genuine religious sentiment!
Okay, so now I have the ACLU telling me what real religious sentiment is? When did this become part of their charter? I seems that they want to have it both ways; public, government sponsored expression of religion is no good, but if it going to happen then we’re going to be there to tell you what’s appropriate or not.
But when you get right down to it, the mayor wants the same thing! It was him that you had to go through to get “approval” for your religious ideas! And with all of the fighting and words thrown back and forth about this both the mayor and the AckLoo missed the main and most salient point that THIS DOESN"T HAVE ANY BUSINESS BEING IN THE GOVERNMENT ARENA AT ALL!! PERIOD!!
So a big eat my holly jolly shorts to the mayor of Cranston for holding his city up as a laughing stock, using religious sentiment as a political football, and using already tapped public legal expenses for what is increasingly being seen as a personal campaign. And a big God Fuck You Merry Gentlemen to the ACLU for once again attempting to keep the sanctity of Santa Claus safe from pink flamingos and rubber ducky dildos.