-- From "Atheist wants Frankenmuth to remove religious symbols" by Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News 6/21/08
So when local atheist Lloyd Clarke wanted to remove a cross from the [City] seal, along with ones in a city park and on a state bridge, residents rose nearly as one against him.
The Ann-Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center announced earlier this month it has been retained by the city to defend the crosses on the city seal and city park.
. . . Stung by the community reaction, he has withdrawn from the controversy.
He hopes a Washington group, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, will pick up the battle against the remaining crosses. The organization is considering such a move.
Why would an atheist want to live in a place where City Hall hosts a Nativity scene during the holidays and its most famous store is named Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland?
Clarke has a long history of activism. A retired UAW organizer, he has belonged to anti-war groups and ran for the state Senate in 2006 as a Green Party candidate, receiving 2.5 percent of the vote.
After he objected to the bridge crosses, the city promptly removed them.
Boy, that was easy, Clarke thought. He then tried his luck with removing the cross from the city seal.
But the city balked, the churches got involved, the residents turned on Clarke, and Frankenmuth hasn't been the same since.
To read the entire article (which ridicules Christians and portrays the atheist as a freedom fighter), CLICK HERE.
