Do you know what makes this “Vermont” story all that more interesting to me? I had to go to an “Oklahoma” news source to find it. Greetings from Vermont.
The battle is on between religious freedom and land use laws around the country. The Oklahoman reports in NewsOK that here in Vermont a couple of Roman Catholics wish to maintain an illuminated cross of substantial size, twenty four feet, at a chapel they built for their very large family and the general public. State and local authorities say “no.”
Vermont is a state that is replete with tested paradoxes that illuminate the following:
- a liberalism that can be anything but tolerant if provoked
- a natural beauty that trumps property rights any day of the week
- a minimalist set of gun laws defyingly amidst very low crime, and
- a tolerance for every possible belief except those considered to be Christian.
This restriction on religious expression in Vermont is not an isolated story in the news ether. A Greek Orthodox church, destroyed by terrorism on 9/11 at Ground Zero, remains unbuilt, buried under governmental red tape. Meanwhile, a battle rages in that same neighborhood regarding a governmentally fast-tracked victory mosque.
My Biblical Christian view is one that clearly departs from that of the Vermont plaintiffs’ pertaining to that of “divinely inspired Dozule crosses.” My viewpoint difference does nothing to diminish my interest in fairness, even within the paradox called Vermont.
