It’s tough to be a spoiler. You’ve seen them before. They’re the folks who interfere with a perfectly fine tradition embraced by the masses all because the spoilers don’t agree with the majority’s viewpoint.
When the spoilers show up, the crowd can almost always be heard muttering “But we’ve always done it this way.”
The latest spoilers in the state are members of the Arkansas Society of Free Thinkers, who sued Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels over his rejection of their request to set up a silly free thinkers display on the grounds of the state Capitol.
They call it a monument to the winter solstice, which is tantamount to setting up a monument to dirt, or rock, or air. Those free thinkers really know what to believe in.
The exhibit isn’t so much about the winter solstice as it is about evolution, free thinking and books that support those concepts.
What the whole episode is really about is the opportunity for these free thinkers to stick their fingers in the eyes of people of faith. On its Web site, the society says the motivating force behind the display’s creation is to counter the Nativity scene displayed on the grounds of the state Capitol.
So, yes, they pretty much embrace the role of spoiler.
As one would expect, a federal judge responded to the free thinkers’ lawsuit against the state by granting a preliminary injunction requiring Daniels to permit the free thinkers’ exhibit, called the Box of Knowledge, on the Capitol grounds.
Daniels had rejected their proposal on the basis that he wanted to maintain some parameters for the number of displays at the Capitol and because the little shack the free thinkers put together isn’t much to look at.
The shack has four sides: One explaining how there have been celebrations of the winter solstice throughout history; one explaining evolutionary theories; one advancing the free thinkers group; and one displaying covers of books the group hopes people will read to free themselves from centuries of religious dogma.
The free thinkers largely put their faith in man. It’s episodes like this that illustrates how misplaced such faith can be.
I understand their constitutional point. The limits on governmental power in the U.S. Constitution are geared toward ensuring the federal authorities don’t establish one faith or religion. Most of the time, it seems government has successfully remained as godless as it can.
People of faith are the ones best served by such prohibitions. Nobody should want a government that injects itself into our lives to the point of embracing one set of beliefs over another.
But situations such as the one created by the free thinkers leaves me shaking my head. The existence of the Nativity scene on the Capital grounds has no more established a state religion than the creation of a monument honoring fallen firefighters turns the state’s population into firefighters.
The entire exercise is geared toward tearing down a tradition most Arkansans don’t mind one bit, and my problem with it is that it’s this group’s whole motivation. They could care less about winter solstice. That’s just the best excuse for a display they could find close to Christmas.
I wonder if the state shouldn’t just limit displays to those related to national holidays. It happens that Christmas is, indeed, a national holiday. Winter solstice is not. Hey, if it’s constitutional for the nation to have a federal holiday on Christmas, isn’t that standard good enough for the Arkansas secretary of state?
But in the interest of free speech protections, perhaps the state would need to let the free thinkers have a display at some other time.
I’d recommend Feb. 12. That has to be the equivalent of Christmas for those free thinkers. It’s Charles Darwin’s birthday. Surely that’s a far more significant event for the free thinkers than the inconsequential observance of a baby’s birth in a Bethlehem stable.
GREG HARTON IS LOCAL EDITOR
OF THE NORTHWEST ARKANSAS
TIMES.