Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Bear Butte

I see the bill that would have bought easements next to Bear Butte has been killed (of course with the number of zombie bills in this year's session it will probably be back). I was against this bill on the grounds that have been posted all over the net... I thought the State had no business spending money to buy easements based on what were essentially religious reasons. If certain people think the area should be protected on religious grounds then let them pool their money to buy the easements.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Convenient how seperation of church and state is important as long as it's not your church.

Let's see if they maintain their conviction.

Capitol Bulldog said...

separation of church and state is important to me no matter what church it is.

Anonymous said...

It's not a church.
It's a hill. A neat hill that happens to also be a state park. It is not a church.

Capitol Bulldog said...

I don't think anyone was saying the hill is a church. I meant church in the broader sense that a state should not be spending tax dollars on the direct encouragement or protection of any religion. Therefore the separation of church and state. I would have no problem if the Governor said the State is spending X number of dollars to purchase land around Bear Butte to expand the state park there. However, what the Governor said was that he wanted to spend X number of dollars to purchase easements to protect the area because Native Americans view it as sacred. No expansion of the state park. No one has claimed the state park is somehow threatened by the development in the area or the Black Hills Rally. What they claim is that the noise from the rally and the consumption of alcohol encroaches on an area held sacred by Native Americans. I think the area is beautiful and should be protected to an extent, but I also think if you are going to protect it in the name of anyone's religion then private parties should be the one's doing the protecting.