Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
Macfistowannabe said:It's pretty sad that the cross - which is supposed to symbolize the crucifixion - could offend so many people. I think it has reason to offend the "Jesus never existed" crowd. Other than that, who does it threaten?
it's not that it offends, but that it excludes.
story: when i was a junior in high school, some guy came to our school to play volleyball. he played against the high school team and won. he then played against the entire senior class, and still won. he was a great volleyball player. he then started to lecture about peer pressure and how we should say no to sex and drugs. the metaphor was that an individual can stand up to the group. ta-da. he then concluded his lecture by saying that he would never bring religon into the public schools, but that it was Jesus Christ who inspires him to play volleyball and to lecture teenagers about drugs and sex. this was a public school.
my Hindu friend (and i only call her that because we're talking about religion) wasn't offended, but she said, "it was just one more thing that made me feel different and isoalted from everyone else." the jewish kids felt the same way. had this happened after school, and the audience had been kids who wanted to hear a christian message and were there voluntarily, it would have been 100% appropriate. however, this was a school-wide assembly, participation was mandatory, and to have it conclude with a Christian message, and the school's endorsement of the message by virtue of paying for the speaker and making the assembly mandatory, was indeed inappropriate.
crosses aren't offensive, but they are exclusionary. to put a cross on something -- classroom, post office, or lecture -- is to turn it into something exclusively christian.