IMPORTANT EVENT - NYC ATHEISTS DEMONSTRATION, PRESS CONFERENCE, ATTEND APPEAL

EVENT SUMMARY

ALL SHOULD ATTEND!

WHAT: DEMONSTRATION, PRESS CONFERENCE, ATTEND APPEAL HEARING AND DISCUSSION LUNCHEON IN SUPPORT FOR THE WORLD TRADE CENTER 9/11 “MIRACLE CROSS” CASE - American Atheists v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

NYC ATHEISTS MEMBERS: KENNETH BRONSTEIN, JANE EVERHART AND DENNIS HORVITZ ARE PLAINTIFFS IN THIS CASE.
WHEN: Thursday, March 6, 2014:

9:00 A.M. - NYCA Demonstration & Press Conf-

erence

10:00 A.M. - Attend Appeal Hearing of "Miracle"

Cross Court Case

AFTER COURT - Discussion Luncheon -

Location: TBA

WHERE: We meet in front of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse -

40 Centre Street (Foley Square) - Lower Manhattan,

City Hall area

COST: No cost involved except individual checks for your luncheon. We

will provide the placards.

Come and enjoy the camaraderie of being an Atheist activist among like-minded friends! If you’ve never been in a demonstration, you will find that it is fun as well as meaningful.

---------------------------------------

Flash!

‘Miracle Cross’ Case Up for Appeal on March 6th

in Manhattan

NYCA and AA to Show Support with Orderly Demonstration

Come and Show Your Support of Atheist Activism!

MIRACLE CROSS BIRTH & ACSENSION

http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/7/4/6/600_338062342.jpeg

CROSS BEING CONSECRATED

http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/9/9/e/600_338062942.jpeg

AS FOUND IN RUBBLE

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/a/6/6/600_338063142.jpeg

RESTORED

American Atheists Inc. (AA) will present its appeal in the World Trade Center 9/11 “Miracle Cross” legal case on Thursday, March 6th, at 10 a.m., at the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse, 40 Centre Street (Foley Square) in lower Manhattan.

Please join us in this important public event to help us safeguard the separation of religion and government, and to ensure the equal treatment of Atheists in the 9/11 Museum and elsewhere.

You may attend this open court to hear the arguments for our appeal, and/or take part in our demonstration (which will take place in front of of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse - Foley Square) to show our support of this issue, which is often misunderstood by many people.

Atheists and other secularists taking part in our demonstration will display our side of this issue by holding placards that say things such as “SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE,” “TAKE THE CROSS BACK TO THE CHURCH” and “RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS DON’T BELONG IN THE 9/11 MUSEUM.”

Come to the Demonstration!

We are asking our members, friends and supporters to come to 40 Centre Street - Foley Square at 9 a.m. (or as close to that as you can make it) to either (1) sit in the open court to hear the arguments (having many people in the courtroom audience illustrates the importance of our appeal) or 2) to carry a placard in the demonstration outside the courthouse.

We will have placards for you at a site near the courthouse and you may choose whichever slogan you wish to carry.

We expect many press reporters to show up and we have chosen designated spokespeople to speak to the press. The designated spokespersons are Ken Bronstein, president of NYC Atheists; Amanda Knief, managing director of AA; Michael Dorian, NY regional director for AA; and Dennis Horvitz, TV host for both NYCA and AA. These people are trained and experienced in speaking to the press. Publicity organizer Jane Everhart will be handing out press kits to the press, which also present our side of the issue.

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/a/1/e/600_338071262.jpeg

Ken Bronstein

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/b/9/0/600_338071632.jpeg

Amanda Knief

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/d/c/a/600_338072202.jpeg

Michael Dorian

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/6/a/8/600_338074472.jpeg

Dennis Horvitz

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/1/b/2/600_338073202.jpeg

Edwin Kagin

After the arguments before the three-judge panel are finished, AA’s legal counsel, Attorney Edwin Kagin, will be available for questions from the press outside of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse.

Our Hearts Go Out to All Victims

Please understand that NYC Atheists and American Atheists fully support the 9/11 Museum and have utter and complete sympathy for the victims of 9/11.

Our issue is with what we see as an opportunistic attempt by the Catholic church to monopolize the memorialization of this tragic event and use it for their own religious purposes with the idolatrization of this Cross made from 9/11 debris.

Our position is: We want to ensure the equal treatment of Atheists, and we want to memorialize equally all the victims who died on 9/11--Jews, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Wiccans and those of no known faith--but since it is difficult for the Museum to do that, we feel it is only fair and logical that the Miracle Cross be moved back to its previous home, St. Peter’s church, where it had previously stood for five years and where it would be easily accessible to Catholics who wish to worship it.

========================

Dear Demonstration participant:

I am attaching a copy of an article from our newsletter of Sept. 2012, which may be of aid to you in explaining to the public on Thursday why Atheists oppose the "Miracle Cross" even as we empathize with the dilemma of the Directors of the 9/11 Museum.

This article was lauded by Michael Dorian while he was filming his documentary movie, "A Cross to Bear" as presenting the most equitable, honest and open-minded presentation of how the 9/ll Museum directors can make an honorable decision in this case.

Ken Bronstein, Amanda Knief of AA, Michael Dorian and Dennis Horvitz are our designated spokespeople to the press, but you, as a participant, may be asked questions by ordinary people who are passing by about the Miracle Cross case. We hope this will help you.

Jane Everhart

FROM: NYC ATHEISTS SEPTEMBER 2012 NEWSLETTER

Editor’s Q and A

The 'Miracle Cross' Is Just Another 9/11 Fraud

By Jane Everhart

Dear Editor,

There was a recent news item about the two 9/11

scammers who drove around the country in a red pickup

truck emblazoned with the names of fallen 9/11 first

responders, attending memorial events and soliciting

money from people. They pocketed tens of thousands of

dollars in donations that they said would go to a Ground

Zero charity before they were caught and exposed. They

even posed for photos with New Jersey governor Chris

Christie as well as with other politicians and real first

responders while fleecing donors, said the New Jersey

Attorney General. I thought of you when I read this

because you have long charged that the so-called

“Miracle Cross” at the 9/11 Museum is a hoax as well.

--Brandon from Borough Park

Dear Brandon:

I, too, read the story about about the 9/11 scammers and

just like you, I thought: Oh no, not again. But these two

scammers, Mark Niemczyk, 66, and Thomas Scalgione,

40, turn out to be amateurs compared to the institutions

and individuals involved in persuading the 9/11 Museum

Board of Directors that the so-called “Miracle Cross” is

“a part of 9/11 history” and therefore deserves to be

mounted on a pedestal and made into a shrine that

supposedly represents the presence of their god on 9/11.

The motives of both sets of scammers are the same--it all

boils down to money--but the two amateur scammers put

their efforts into short-term gains while those who

champion the Miracle Cross are looking at long-term

gains and image enhancement.

L. to r: N.J. Govennor Christie, Niemczyk

Newspapers called the two amateur 9/11 scammers “excons” because they have minor police records, but

nobody seems to notice that the purveyors of the Miracle

Cross hoax--the Catholic church--also has a long history

of lying, cheating, pedophilia (and the protection of

criminal pedophiles), acquisition of money under false

pretenses and hoarding of money and other acquisitions

in their headquarters, the Vatican. The recent scandal of

the Pope’s valet is yet another example of the strange

goings-on in that huge repository of acquired wealth, the

Vatican.

Cross Attracts Donations to Church

True, the days of the church’s use of the 9/11 Miracle

Cross as an immediate cash cow may be temporarily

over since the cross was moved to a more protected area

in the 9/11 Museum, but when it stood for 5 years on the

side lawn of St. Peter’s church nearby, there is no doubt

that it attracted donations from benighted worshippers (it

acquired as well two memento baseballs that are glued to

its midsection.) There is no doubt that the Miracle Cross

will also attract discreet donation envelopes in the

future, particularly if it becomes a shrine in the

Museum.

And as Ken Bronstein, president of NYC Atheists, who

is a plaintiff in the American Atheists’ suit to remove the

Miracle Cross from the Museum, told lawyers from the

opposition at his deposition in NY for the suit: “Expect

the Museum and the church to share millions of dollars

on sales of miniature souvenir crosses in the Museum

gift shop.”

Scam Truck Scam Cross

Scam Truck Scam Cross

There is so much evidence that the so-called Miracle

Cross is a fraud and a religious hoax that I don’t know

where to begin. Let’s take the lies and fabrications one

by one:

Let’s face it, the so-called Miracle cross was just

another i-beam piece found in the rubble of 9/11

along with hundreds of others just like it. When you

have any demolition, you get i-beams like this one

scattered all over the place. A clean-up worker (he

happened to be Catholic) found this particular ibeam,

uprighted it, cleaned it off and called it to the

attention of Father Brian Jordan, a young monk from

St. Peter’s Church nearby, who upon seeing the

propped up i-beam, proclaimed it, hallelujah, as a

“message from god.”

I should point out that this is like picking up a

pebble from the 9/11 rubble, polishing it and

claiming that it represents the reincarnation of a

Buddhist who died in the fall of the Twin Towers.

Can anybody prove it isn’t? Of course not. Would

anybody want to disabuse the finder of this

reincarnated stone of his delusion? Pity for his

sorrow would probably discourage that. Would you

have the nerve to say to the bereaved person, hey,

that’s just another piece of gravel?

And that leads to what I find most offensive in this

Miracle Cross controversy: a pervasive aura of

condescension from people who should know better,

namely some members of the Board of the 9/11

Museum. They know full well that the Miracle Cross

is a fake but their apparent attitude is, “Well, they

found it, and they believe it is genuine, so let’s not

upset their little superstitions by pointing out that it

is just another rusty girder.”

May I, as an Atheist, respond, with all due respect,

that the Emperor is naked? Atheists do not go along

with the accommodationist, “Oh, let them have this

one,” attitude. We say: this be-throned i-beam was

not put there by god, does not represent a miracle

and has no celestial message other than that when

you destroy a skyscraper, enormous pieces of steel

girders are left standing in the debris.

As an Atheist, I have questioned why this fraud, this

deception, this Miracle Cross, is so hard for the 9/11

Museum Board to reject. I suspect that the answer is

that there is one significant difference between the

Miracle Cross and all the other 9/11 frauds: The

cross is a religious symbol. The two red-truck scammers, Mark and Tom, were not protected by a religious symbol. Perhaps next time, having learned their lesson, they might plaster a Christian cross on their truck and don clerical collars. I’ll wager the attorney general would have a lot of trouble indicting them had they done that.

I wonder, is there, rattling around, somewhere deep

in the subconscious minds of some of those august

9/11 Museum Board members, the subterranean

idea, an idea that dare not breathe its name, that all

of religion is a deception and if they so much as

imply that this god-sent “miracle cross ” is a ruse,

they are chipping away at the very foundations of

religion, and indicting religion itself as a sham? If

the “Miracle Cross” is bogus, isn’t all of religion

also a deception? I think that is the burden that

weighs down the most hard-thinking of the

Museum’s Board members. It is their pity, their

condescending pity, for the innocent delusions of

Catholic believers--and I feel for the Board

Members in their dilemma.

But the answer sits before them in Washington, in the

handwriting of our forefathers, and it frees the Board

Members from the burden of pity and condescension: It

is the first amendment of our Constitution and it has no

pity. It says that the U.S. will not do anything to

establish religion, and subsequent case law has

established that the placement of religious artifacts on

public property (and the 9/11 museum sits on

government property) is prohibited by law.

So the Constitution, in a way, liberates the 9/11

Museum’s Board Members to do what they know what

they must do. And their consolation is: because they

would be doing the constitutionally right thing, history

will absolve them 