ACLU Protests Park

Of course our friends at the ACLU are involved again. What they really would like is to only name things after atheists.


Harris County Commissioners Court today approved a proposal by Commissioner Steve Radack to name a new county park John Paul's Landing in honor of the late pope.

The 865-acre park on Katy Hockley Cutoff in northwest Harris County park will feature a lake of up to 500 acres and will be designed for boating, fishing, bird-watching and hiking.

"I want to make a spectacular park out there," said Radack, commissioner of Precinct 3.

County Judge Robert Eckels and Commissioners Radack, Jerry Eversole and Sylvia Garcia voted to name the park for the pope. Commissioner El Franco Lee abstained.

"I'm a Catholic," Lee said. "It's not in the spirit of what the pope was about."

Radack, also a Roman Catholic, said he wants to name the park after John Paul II because he greatly admired the late pontiff.

"I think the pope would be proud of this park," he said.

Gipson Arnold, president of the Houston Atheists Society, spoke against the proposal. "I'm opposed to the constancy of the pushiness of government-sponsored religion in our society," he said.

On Monday, an American Civil Liberties Union official questioned whether a park built with taxpayer money should be named after a religious leader.

"I would not want to name some park the Dalai Lama Park because some people might not be Buddhists," said Randall Kallinen, president of the ACLU Houston chapter. "It is insensitive to other religions."

The park will be built on former rice fields that cost Precinct 3 more than $1 million, Radack said. It will be northeast of Paul B. Rushing Park, a softball complex, and include no sports fields.

Precinct 3 will get whatever approvals or permits are required by state and federal agencies, Radack said, and planning will be coordinated with the Harris County Flood Control District.

The land is on a major flyway for migratory birds. The park will be designed to keep the land suitable for birds and other wildlife, Radack said.

The lake, he said, might be about 10 feet deep in the deepest areas and look more like marshy wetlands in others.

"A lot of the water would be pumped up from wells," he said. "I hope to start on some of (the work) this summer."

Radack said he has named two other Precinct 3 parks after Catholic clergy the Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza Park on Eldridge Parkway, honoring the now-archbishop of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, and the Monsignor Bill Pickard Park in Sharpstown, a joint city-county park that the county named after a local pastor.

No Precinct 3 parks have been named after rabbis, Protestant ministers or other non-Catholic clergy.

Eckels said the naming is appropriate because John Paul II had "a significant impact on the community. He wasn't simply a leader of the church, but a leader of the world."

Martin Cominsky, the Houston-based regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, agreed with the premise but suggested parks also might be named for non-Catholic clergy.

"We have no objection to parks being named after great leaders, and Pope John Paul II was a great leader," he said. "We hope the commissioner will include people of all faiths when he names parks that are for all of us. You want to create an environment that is inclusive of all people of our county."

The park wouldn't be the first public U.S. park named after John Paul.

In 1980, the Massachusetts Legislature named a 65-acre, ocean-front park in Boston the Pope John Paul II Park, said Joe O'Keefe, spokesman for the Massachusetts Office of Environmental Affairs. The naming was in honor of the pope's visit to Boston the year before.

One of Dallas' city parks is named after a cleric: the Bishop Flores Park.

San Antonio has at least two public sites named after clerics the Father Albert Benavides Park and the Father Roman Community Center.

From the Houston Chronicle.