Flight 93 Victims Honored with Muslim Crescent? This had better be false....

Flight 93 victims honored with Muslim Crescent?: Something to keep an eye on.....

I certainly hope that Murdoch didn't intend for his design to mirror the Muslim crescent, but one would THINK the guy would at least have considered the implication of such a design....

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DAY OF INFAMY, 2001
Flight 93 victims honored with Muslim Crescent?
Pastor threatens lawsuit, sees design as bow to terrorists
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Posted: September 10, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
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@ 2005 WorldNetDaily.com



Model of Flight 93 memorial

A Pennsylvania pastor is fighting the newly approved design of the Flight 93 National Memorial, contending its crescent pattern is a symbol of Islam.

Rev. Ron McRae, head of the Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, Pa., about 55 miles from Pittsburgh, said a private group he formed might go to court to block the "Crescent of Embrace" memorial designed by Paul Murdoch Associates of Los Angeles.

"This is a memorial to the terrorists who killed those people, not a memorial to the folks who died there innocently," McRae told the Tribune-Democrat newspaper in Johnstown, Pa.

McRae of Conemaugh Township, Pa., is director and founder of the Lancaster-based Street Preachers Fellowship.

Muslim Crescent

The heart of the memorial is a mile-long semicircle of red maples surrounding the place near Shanksville, Pa., where the flight's 40 passengers and crew were killed when the hijacked plane plunged into the ground Sept. 11, 2001.

The designer maintains he used the term crescent only in the architectural sense of a curved line.

"This is not about any religion per se," Murdoch told the Tribune-Democrat. "It's a spiritual space, and a sacred place, but it's open to anyone."

But McRae vows to fight it.

"They wouldn't dare put up the Ten Commandments or the cross of Christ, but they're going to put up a red crescent," he said. "We're not going to stand idly by and allow this to happen."

Several weblogs raised similar concerns about the design. Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs asked: "Is this a coincidence, an example of amazing cluelessness, or something more deliberate?" Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters said, "Can you imagine the outcry from the multiculturalists and the ACLU had the design incorporated a cross or a Star of David in honor of the victims? Why should we tolerate the Crescent that, inadvertently or deliberately, honors the terrorists?

Link: Flight 93 victims honored with Muslim Crescent?

Edit: Here are the comments of my father on the subject; he gave me the permission to transcribe them here:

The crescent is not a design by "accident." Someone needs to wake up. DESIGNERS DESIGN WITH INTENTION.. that is what designing is. Hello!? And Archetechs above all professions understand how to put symbolic reference and ideology into what they build, it is at the heart and soul of what they are called to do.

For the designers to say this is for "healing and bonding" they are telling us directly, "We made this design for a reason. We want to be inclusive and understand that the peacefulness of Islam is seen and appreciated." If anyone doesn't understand that, they are nieve.

Now the bigger question, "Is it a bad idea to have a peaceful Islamic crescent as part of the memorial for the Flight 93?" I say, "let's go with it....Just as soon as there is a huge Christian cross erected at the Abu Grae Prison for "healing and bonding" And might as well put another one at the scene of the bloody seiege that captured the two sons of Sadam, and why not a third in the hill country around the spider whole were we got Sadam... or atleast in the town square where his statue was toppled. I like that best. A "healing and bonding" between our peoples, and a giant cross to help those tensions go.

Ludicrous you say? Exactly. And you don't hear any Muslims suggesting it. I wonder why? Lets put a huge granite block with 10 foot high "Let's Roll" hewn into the side... with a wonderfully magnificent American flag flying right behind... God bless those brave men and women.

--JJ