Virginia judge rules Charlottesville confederate statues are war monuments

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A Virginia judge has ruled that statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson in Charlottesville are war monuments that the city cannot remove without permission from the state.

In a nine-page ruling obtained from the University of Virginia School of Law website, Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Moore said neither the intentions of the people who erected the statues nor how they make people feel change the fact that the statues pay homage to the Civil War. Moore cited state code in his ruling that says it is illegal for municipalities to remove such monuments to war.

"I find this conclusion inescapable," Moore said. "It is the very reason the statues have been complained about from the beginning. It does no good pretending they are something other than what they actually are."

Don Gathers, the former chair of the city's Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, said he disagreed with the judge's ruling because it retraumatizes the city.

"Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's right or it's moral. I'm fearful what this has done is given the vile evilness that descended upon us in August of 2017 to come back," he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/virginia-judge-rules-charlottesville-confederate-statues-are-war-monuments/ar-AAAIz15

[Fresh_Start]

1. if the monuments can't be removed...update the monuments with an unmissable

inscription...TRAITOR to the United States of America.

[onenote]

2. The same law that prevents the monuments from being removed

also would be held to prevent the "updating" you propose.

So that's not going to happen. It's going to require the state legislature changing the law.

[Fresh_Start]

6. No, that is not what it says

For purposes of this section, "disturb or interfere with" includes removal of, damaging or defacing monuments or memorials, or, in the case of the War Between the States, the placement of Union markings or monuments on previously designated Confederate memorials or the placement of Confederate markings or monuments on previously designated Union memorials.

Doesn't seem to exclude including a plaque to explain that these people were traitors to the USA...as long as the designation of traitor to the USA doesn't include a "Union marking"

[onenote]

10. I have no doubt a court in Virginia would find "defacing"

to encompass the placement of the described plaque.

[Aristus]

3. Statues to Adolf Hitler going up in Charlottesville in 3......2......1......

Hey, it's a 'war memorial'...

[maxsolomon]

4. Clever law writing, Racists

Someone put up a Saddam Hussein memorial, quick.

[TwilightZone]

5. It seems odd that a "monuments to war" law would include the Civil War.

War memorials would seem to imply war with other entities, countries, etc., and not a war with a rebel faction.

Then again, I guess they were technically an "other entity", but they were also the losing one. The Nazis lost, too, and we don't memorialize them. Well, most of us don't.

[Caliman73]

7. Bullshit!

#1. Those statues were put up in 1924, at the height of the first revival of the Klan after they had declined in the lat 1800's. That was 50 years after the Civil War.
#2. They are statues to traitors and enemies to the United States. We do not have statues glorifying Cornwallis. We do not erect monuments to enemies of the US.
#3. A monument to an enemy general is not a monument to war. If they want to put up a statue depicting battles that were fought in South Carolina, that is fine. You can even mention that Lee or some other general lead enemy troops against the Union Army. The statues however, are not doing that. They are commemorating Lee, Jackson, and the cause for which they fought, which was treason and slavery.

[StarfishSaver]

8. Does that mean if a state wanted to erect a statute of Hitler, the statute couldn't be removed?

Same thing ...

[NightWatcher]

9. Statues of people who took up arms against the US Govt (Army) and lost

And they think they deserve a statue?

Winners get statues.

[Generic Other]

12. Let them become free speech zones

Defaced, disgraced, declawed.