|
as I have said before..
Liberal capitol state in this country...
LOL
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 10:53
AM
Subject: [Sndbox] Maryland Atheists Want
State to Remove Roadside Memorials
Maryland Atheists Want State to Remove Roadside
Memorials
By Steve
Brown
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
October 27,
2003
(CNSNews.com) - American Atheists in Maryland said Friday
they want the state to start removing roadside memorials; crosses, flowers and
sometimes teddy bears that people leave next to highways where a loved one or
family member has died in an automobile accident. The practice is repeated all
over the country.
While there are currently no petition drives or other
widespread grassroots activities, Maryland atheists say they want state
officials to be more proactive in the matter.
"Our position basically
is that we're against it (the memorials)," David Condo, Maryland state
director for American Atheists, told CNSNews.com. "We don't think it
makes sense from a driver's safety perspective, for one. If you're looking at
a memorial or any other thing that's been put on the road, then you're
certainly not looking at the road. If it's religious in nature it could also
be offensive to anyone who just wants to use the road. So it doesn't make
sense from a couple of perspectives."
According to Condo, the basic
Maryland State policy is to remove anything along the roadways, but he said
state officials must be persuaded to enforce the policy.
"There's
plenty of places in our society for dealing with grief. I know as much as
anybody else that dealing with the loss of a loved one is very difficult. But
there a lots of private institutions in our society that deal with such
things. We have our cemeteries and our morgues and our churches. There's no
need for public roads to be dealing in what should be a personal matter,"
Condo said.
Ellen Johnson, the national president of American Atheists,
agreed, calling the practice of leaving roadside memorials a nationwide
problem.
"In fact in New Jersey right near our center, there is a large
cross bolted to a tree on the Garden State Parkway put up there by the
Sheriff's Department," Johnson told CNSNews.com. "But these are up all
over the place. They're shrines set up on public property everywhere and
people really don't have the right to do that."
Johnson said the
growing number of roadside memorials has upset many of her group's members.
But she said people bothered by the memorials usually remove them themselves
"because it's easier" than trying to get the state to remove
them.
"They get to be extreme. They get to be more than just, let's
place a bouquet of flowers where there was an accident," Johnson said. "These
become permanent memorials...and it becomes a mission for these people to
advertise where no one else can advertise. It's become less about the original
situation and more about putting up an advertisement and that's the
problem."
In a WBAL Baltimore 920 AM/Associated Press story, Anna Ravegum with the Maryland Chapter of Americans
United for the Separation of Church and State expressed her organization's
concern.
"It's a complicated thing where you have somebody's private
grief being expressed on public land, whether it's a cross or just a simple
wreath. It's really something that needs public attention and scrutiny,"
Ravegum was quoted as saying in the WBAL/AP story.
In the same story,
David Buck, Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) communications
director, remarked on how an increasing number of flags, wreaths and floral
arrangements had sprung up along the state's roadways and bridges in the wake
of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The story reported Buck as saying that
after one flag became dislodged and fell on a driver's car, SHA workers "went
out and further secured some of the memorials."
However, Buck told
reporters, "We're not going to remove anything, whether it's a memorial in
remembrance of 9/11 or someone who died on the highway."
According to
Condo, that crosses the line in terms of what state officials should be doing
about the memorials.
"You're having servants of the state maintaining
these private memorials, which shouldn't be there in the first place," Condo
said. "You know, that's our tax dollars being spent on something that
shouldn't even be there."
Maryland SHA public information officer Lora
Rakowski said Condo was correct -- that the general policy was to remove all
non-authorized materials on the roadside. She added that her colleague, Buck,
had been quoted out of context in the WBAL/AP story.
"Essentially...it's commonplace that a request for (placing) a
roadside memorial is denied and we suggest that the requester basically find
other means to memorialize the victim," Rakowski told CNSNews.com .
Rakowski said grieving family members have other means for
memorializing accident fatality victims -- include planting something at SHA's
community planting center or signing up for the adopt-a-highway program in
which a sign is placed along the road identifying them as the family of the
victim.
Once an unofficial memorial is placed on the side of a highway,
"it is removed only if it presents an identifiable safety hazard," Rakowski
explained, "because our first concern is for the safety of the motoring
public."
But while state highway officials do not make a concerted
effort to seek out memorials to remove them, Rakowski said most are removed
"eventually anyway" through routine roadside maintenance such as mowing,
because of road construction or if the memorials start to deteriorate or
become a hazard.
"I know the (Buck) quote (in the WBAL/AP story) did
not capture that but...generally if it is a hazard it will be removed and
secondly it will eventually, most likely be removed during our mowing season
and those types of activities," Rakowski said.
Rakowski said in some
cases, even when the memorials are removed, family members replace them on the
anniversary of the accident that claimed the loved one.
"We are
sensitive to the grieving process of family and friends," Rakowski said,
noting that if the signs that are removed are still in "decent shape," SHA
keeps them at its Baltimore headquarters where families can retrieve
them.
The roadside memorials do not trigger the most complains to
Rakowski's office. She said real estate signs placed in hazardous spots along
a road produced more complaints than the memorials for accident victims "The
focus of our manpower is more dedicated to those things that present immediate
safety threats," Rakowski said
________________________________
Changes to your subscription
(unsubs, nomail, digest) can be made by going to
http://sandboxmail.net/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
|
