Peace banned for the holidays!
A Pagosa Springs [Colorado] resident is resisting
an order by her homeowners’ association to remove a peace symbol-shaped
wreath from an exterior wall of her home.
The winter holiday season is off to a rousing start — with “professional” Xhristians working as hard as ever to bring everyone in line with their “values”. Here’s a story from Colorado. There will be more. No doubt.
A Pagosa Springs [Colorado] resident is resisting an order by her homeowners’ association to remove a peace symbol-shaped wreath from an exterior wall of her home.
“I just wanted to put a message of peace out there,” said Lisa Jensen, who hung the wreath Nov. 19. She said Wednesday she didn’t intend the wreath as a statement against the Iraq war.
“I was really trying to be in favor of something - peace,” Jensen said.
She was informed by letter from the Loma Linda Homeowners’ Association that “Loma Linda residents are offended by the Peace Sign displayed on the front of your house.”
The letter, citing a use-restriction banning “signs, billboards or advertising structures of any kind” within the subdivision without prior approval, said the wreath had to come down by Friday, or Jensen and husband, Bill Trimarco, would face a $25-per-day fine.
Jensen said Saturday that Friday’s deadline had come and gone without contact from the board of directors. She was unsure of how, if imposed, collection of any fine would be enforced, but planned to leave all of her Christmas decorations, including the wreath, up until after Christmas.
Homeowners’ Association President Bob Kearns said Wednesday that the board had required another resident to remove peace symbols a week before, and that property owner complied.
Jensen said the other property owner, a neighbor, had sunk skis marked with peace symbols in his driveway as driveway markers. She said the neighbor told her he was informed that residents were offended by the posting of the peace symbols “while our country is at war.”
Kearns declined to describe the complaints he had received about Jensen’s wreath but expressed his own opinion.
“The peace sign has a lot of negativity associated with it,” he said. “It’s also an anti-Christ sign. That’s how it started.”
On Wednesday, every member of the subdivision’s five-person Architectural Control Committee was asked to resign when they collectively opposed the decision by the board of directors to fine Jensen and Trimarco.
Pagosa Springs is a nice little community on the Colorado-New Mexico border. You wouldn’t think — to look at it — that it was in the middle of the bible belt.
Posted: Mon - November 27, 2006 at 10:22 AM