WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) [1] – As a Catholic, Vince Haley often went to Mass at the College of William and Mary’s historic Wren Chapel when he was an undergraduate in the 1980s. Also a Catholic, school President Gene R. Nichol often goes to the 120-seat chapel alone at night to think in the quiet.
Both agree the chapel is a sacred space meaningful to students, alumni, faculty and staff of the public school who use it for religious services and secular events.
They clash, though, over what to do with an unadorned, 18-inch brass cross that had been displayed on the altar since about 1940.
Nichol ordered the cross removed in October to make the chapel more welcoming to students of all faiths. Previously, the cross could be removed by request; now it can be returned by request.
“It’s the right thing to do to make sure that this campus is open and welcoming to everyone,” Nichol said. “This is a diverse institution religiously, and we want it to become even more diverse.”
Haley and more than 10,000 supporters who have signed his online petition since last fall want Nichol to put the cross back on the altar permanently. More than 1,100 students, alumni and others have signed a petition in support of Nichol since Jan. 31.
In response to early protests, Nichol decided in December to return the cross to the chapel on Sundays, and he recently created a committee that will examine the role of religion at public universities and the use of the chapel.
The school’s governing Board of Visitors meets this coming Thursday and Friday, and Haley and his supporters – including some alumni who have threatened to withhold donations until the cross is permanently restored – want the panel to overrule Nichol. The board’s agenda will not be available until midweek, a school spokesman said.
There is a problem with worshiping on the altar of “diversity”. Eventually, you get to a point where our populations are diverse, no longer, but rather monotone, again. Of course, by that time, everyone has been stripped of any cultural individuality they might have had. All by order of the government.
But while I see that as the end game, what the initial goal is, is quite different; As I have watched the anti-Christianists move into power over the years, it has become clear to me , that “diversity” is not really what they’re about. Rather, they are about reshaping the existing societies and cultures in their own image. Frankly, buy fail to see any advantage in either goal… the stated one, or the real one.
At what point, do the individual cultures and subcultures that have made up America since its birth, the majority of which were Christian, stand up, open their mouths, and say forcefully “We’re tired of you stripping us of our heritage”? Not only are we now fighting against Islamo facism, we are now fighting supposedly American liberals, who were seemingly without hesitation jumping in on the side of radical Islam as regards the future of America. I respectfully submit that the time to stand up and fight for our individual heritage, has long passed. If we don’t start swinging for the noses of these bastards, we’re going to lose it all.
Update: (Bit) It appears that great minds DO think alike. John Hawkins [2] is of similar mind as he explores this subject.