Funny how the ACLU grounds their threats of lawsuits in the alleged offense to 1 person’s sensibilities, yet they are oblivious to how insensitive it is to ask Christians to throw a blanket over the Cross.
You can read the full story on Fox News here, but since I’m a local to this area, please let me give you the Jersey Shore insider’s perspective.
Ocean Grove is an unincorporated part of the larger Neptune Township lying next to the Atlantic Ocean, immediately south of my beloved little City, Asbury Park.
All the land is owned by a Methodist group called the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, who also founded it back in 1869. You political folks may be familiar with the President of the Camp Meeting Association – Scott Rasmussen, erstwhile ruler of ESPN and current head of the polling company Rasmussen Reports.
The group describes their founding as follows:
Shortly after the Civil War, in the late 1860’s, a group of God’s people set off on a search “to find a suitable place to fulfill their dream that God should have a place for a church by the sea where His children could gather and reap physical, mental, and spiritual benefits.” After searching the Jersey shore, Ocean Grove was selected by its founder, Dr. William Osborn, for its high beach, thick grove of pine, cedar and hickory trees, and the absence of disease-bearing mosquitoes. Natural boundaries were determined by two lakes and the ocean.
NO MOSQUITOES!!!
I testify to you today that it is a bucolic little beach town full of Victorian architecture, although I abstain from joining the mosquito-free claim.
This is a decidedly Christian place. You’ve heard of “blue laws” where stores stay closed on Sundays? When I was a boy, Ocean Grove went them one better: The gates to the town were closed shut on Sundays. You couldn’t drive in or out. They’ve long ago lifted those restrictions.
Despite its Christian aesthetic, Ocean Grove has always been open to revelers and consorts of all types. It is, after all, a beach town that thrives on tourism.
The center of this town is a huge but humbly beautiful structure called the Great Auditorium, as seen in the pictures I’ve attached. It seats 6,500.00 people.
Note two things very well. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association is a private ministry, not the Methodist Church. It is governed by 10 clergy and 10 lay people. The Great Auditorium is not just a place of worship (although you can feel free to worship there no matter what your religion). It hosts secular events as well as religious events. In fact, the last time I was there was to see Bob Newhart in concert. He was drop dead funny. He told a joke so funny, with a certain evangelical preacher as the butt of it, that I’ll never forget it.
Some of the performers you can catch there this summer don’t bring to mind Methodist worship: Herman’s Hermits, Peter Noone, Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees, Tim Conway, Tony Bennett, Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra Jr.
Although, I must admit listening to Tony Bennett is kind of a religious experience.
Neptune Township is populous enough that their High School graduation requires seating for 3,000. As you might guess, the only venue in Neptune large enough to fit that many people is the Great Auditorium.
Even though the ceremony has been there for 70 years, last year one woman, who doesn’t even live there, complained to the ACLU that she felt like an outsider at graduation because of the Cross on the building.
I have news for her: She was an outsider. She traveled to a Christian part of town from outside. What nerve she has to think that 140 years of Christian and secular tradition needs to change because she graced us with her presence for 3 hours.
The Cross, by the way, was donated by Woody Allen after he filmed the movie Stardust Memories there.
Based upon the outsider’s complaint, the ACLU has been badgering Neptune Township to cover up the Cross during graduation, as well has America’s two oldest electric signs, which say “Holiest to the Lord” and “So Be Ye Holy.”
I’m not happy that Neptune has already folded to one of the ACLU’s demands: The band will no longer play “Onward Christian Soldiers.” It was more about tradition than religion after 70 years.
Here’s what I hope. I hope Neptune tells the ACLU to pound sand on the beach. I’ve had experience with New Jersey’s ACLU in the past, and know that they are often broke. They will threaten the lawsuit but not bring it for lack of funds. That’s what happened 20 years ago when they threatened the beautiful little beach town of Spring Lake, NJ for having a life sized Crèche at Christmas.
The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Ground Association is no stranger to this sort of attack. In 2007 you may recall it made national headlines when two lesbians were denied the right to have their civil union ceremony in the Camp Meeting Association’s boardwalk pavilion. They sued because straight couples were allowed to rent it for their weddings. That controversy became moot because the Association stopped doing weddings there altogether.
I pray, that’s right - openly and publically pray - that this issue ends differently.
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