In the past I’ve told my friends on this website about the sacrifices my dad made fighting with the 3rd Armored Division in France and Germany. And I’ve told you that I have five family members buried in Arlington. But I’ve never told you the following story because I didn’t know it until three weeks ago.
My dad was commanding one of General George Patton’s tank battalions in the last months of World War II when a German soldier fired a bazooka from the upper floor of a chalet in the town of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Dad, who had massive head wounds and extensive brain damage, was taken by the Nazis as a prisoner of war. How he got out is a story for another day. But he survived and after a long battle with Alzheimer’s he died in 1997. The basic facts are in his seventy year-old military and medical records.
Some HOA photos really don’t need much comment. Others cry out for some kind of reaction. I don’t know anything about the Lakewood Springs Homeowners Association but millions of embattled homeowners would agree that this particular sign might be more descriptive than the HOA intends!
Anti-Semitism is vile wherever it pops up. If you’ve read my book, Neighbors at War, you’ll read how the modern HOA movement was started in 1964 just months after the Civil Rights Law was enacted. In other words, Homeowners Associations were started as ‘private clubs’ to keep Jews, Negroes, and Orientals out of white neighborhoods. The language of those whites-only sentiments can still be found in millions of real estate deeds across the country.
We’ve seen the stories: No mezuzah allowed on the doors of the Jewish. No angels standing in the rock garden in remembrance of the deceased. Now, it’s no Buddhist symbols or crosses in the flower garden for Chris Bumann who lives in the Covington Bridge HOA in Spring, Texas.
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says the government cannot restrict our free exercise of religion. Yet, homeowners associations in Texas have a law that states they can regulate religious symbols at the homes of their members. EXCEPT, it also says they have to be in compliance with the Texas and United States Constitutions.
