A group of New York City atheists is demanding that the city remove a street sign honoring seven firefighters killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks because they said the sign violates the separation of church and state.
The street, “Seven in Heaven Way,” was officially dedicated last weekend in Brooklyn outside the firehouse where the firefighters once served. The ceremony was attended by dozens of firefighters, city leaders and widows of the fallen men.
“There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” said Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. “It’s really insulting to us.”
Bronstein told Fox News Radio that his organization was especially concerned with the use of the word “heaven.”
“We’ve concluded as atheists there is no heaven and there’s no hell,” he said. “And it’s a totally religious statement. It’s a question of separation of church and state.”
He was nonplussed over how his opposition to the street sign might be perceived – especially since the sign is honoring fallen heroes.
“It’s irrelevant who it’s for,” Bronstein said. “We think this is a very bad thing.”
David Silverman, president of American Atheists, agreed and called on the city to remove the sign.
“It implies that heaven actually exists,” Silverman told Fox News Radio. “People died in 9-11 but they were all people who died, not just Christians. Heaven is a specifically Christian place. For the city to come up and say all those heroes are in heaven now, it’s not appropriate.”
“All memorials for fallen heroes should celebrate the diversity of our country and should be secular in nature. These heroes might have been Jews, they might have been atheists, I don’t know but either way it’s wrong for the city to say they’re in heaven. It’s preachy.”
City leaders seemed dumbfounded by the atheists’ outrage because no one complained about the sign as it was going through a public approval process.
“It’s unfortunate that they didn’t raise this as an issue while it was undergoing its public review either at the community board level or when it came before the city council on their public agenda,” said Craig Hammerman, the district manager for Brooklyn Community Board Six.
Hammerman told Fox News Radio that the community was “solidly behind this proposal. Not a single person stood up to speak out against it. I think it’s a little late in the process for someone to be bringing this up now.”
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