{"id":19302,"date":"2011-04-10T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2011-04-10T11:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19302"},"modified":"2011-04-10T21:25:06","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T03:25:06","slug":"hate-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19302","title":{"rendered":"Hate Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The weekend after Tuan Pham’s application for a variance for his statue of Jesus was rejected by the city, vandals\u00a0build and light a big fire around of his statues<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A 7-foot Jesus statue in Tuan Pham’s back yard and at the heart of a zoning dispute was damaged by fire Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Pham and his wife, Mai, awoke for an early church service to see a blaze enveloping the marble statue Pham had imported and erected in his prayer garden beside the Mississippi River bluff. A pile of nail-studded wood had been stacked around the statue’s base and lit on fire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Welcome to America…<\/p>\n

Pham, 75, put on a coat, ran outside and tried to move the burning 2-by-4s away from his beloved statue. A daughter called police, comforted her mother and began snapping photos.<\/p>\n

The incident has left the family distraught but more determined to keep the statue in its current spot — one that the St. Paul City Council says is closer to the edge of the bluff than city rules permit.<\/p>\n

“God never gave up,” Pham said. “So I follow him.”<\/p>\n

“It’s a sign,” said Pham’s daughter, Sylvie Phan. “God wants his name to be known.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a sign, all right – of lots of things.<\/p>\n

On top of what the Phams have seen, it’s a sign of what life is like for anyone <\/em> who bucks the status quo in Saint Paul. \u00a0From a St. Paul community forum:<\/p>\n

The fire that was set was quite large, but could not destroy his statue, so the arsonists decided to trash some of the other statuary in the yard.<\/p>\n

The police were called, of course, but refused to investigate. Tuan was told to come to the station on Monday and fill out a report…arson and hate crime, not a big deal in St. Paul, I guess.<\/p>\n

The statue is 3′ INSIDE the yard fence, but evidently Bucky Thune (who was named by Mr. Pham as a lead antagonist) found an ordinance that would force the Phams to move the statue 2’…two fucking feet.<\/p>\n

That means the entire grotto would have to be dismantled, which of course is the goal.<\/p>\n

Looking up and down the bluff, one can see sheds, swing sets and all manner of constructions closer to the bluff than Tuan’s statue. But Christ has gotta go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look – we don’t know who set the fire.<\/p>\n

But I would feel comfortable betting money it’ll end up being some hanger-on from the Twin Cities left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weekend after Tuan Pham’s application for a variance for his statue of Jesus was rejected by the city, vandals\u00a0build and light a big fire around of his statues: A 7-foot Jesus statue in Tuan Pham’s back yard and at the heart of a zoning dispute was damaged by fire Sunday morning. Pham and his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19302"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19308,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19302\/revisions\/19308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}