6/23/2011
A new street sign dedicated last week in Brooklyn and named “Seven in Heaven Way” in honor of seven firefighters killed on 9/11 has caused an uproar among a group of New York City atheists, who say the sign must be removed. Ken Bronstein of the New York City Atheists said the sign was “very insulting” and insisted that “no signage or displays of a religious nature” be posted in public. “It’s irrelevent who (the sign) is for.” President of American Atheists David Silverman agreed: “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.”
City officials say atheist groups never complained when the sign was going through the approval process, according to Fox News Radio. City Councilmember Sara González’s spokesman Mike Schweinsburg said, “The seven heroes have long been known as the ‘Seven in Heaven.’ That’s something that we didn’t have any hand in, it is the way the community and their families chose to remember them. So if that is their desire then we are happy to continue to remember them in the way that their family and fellow firefighters prefer to call them.”
The city does not intend to remove the street sign, which was placed just outside the firehouse where the seven firefighters were based. The atheists groups have threatened a lawsuit to remove it.
