I like Joshua 24:15. An island of tolerance in a see of intolerance.

Well, I have just read the book of Josua, and this quote is towards the end of a long life in the service of genocide and goes as follows:

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

I must say, that the tolerance in this quote seems to me like the tolerance of an old Stalin telling somebody: “Of course, you are free to choose between communism and capitalism. Just try!” In context, you can see that this is just a rhetorical trick. And it couldn’t be otherwise, because in this culture, tolerance is not an option; just have a look at The Law.

The issue of religious expression on government property is (or should be) a non-issue at this point, but I think private institutions should have the right to censor certain kinds of expressions in certain specific ways. They can’t stop people from standing on that Alumni Walk and having heated debates about religion, but they can definitely set guidelines for what people are allowed to put on the bricks.

I absolutely agree that this is one of the few cases where the “slippery slope” argument does apply, because Hemant is absolutely right: once the can of worms is open, you can’t squish some of them arbitrarily and allow others to crawl around grossing people out. Or, I guess you can, but it makes you look openly and plainly hypocritical, plus it’s really mean to the worms who get squished.

Which is why the best thing to do (in some situations) might be to remain neutral and not favor any one group over another.

I agree 100%. It’s better not to have any groups represented than just one over any others. Otherwise, some people can get pretty ugly.