Free Republic

The Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter to Governor Brewer and other officials saying that it goes against the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By KFYI News (KFYI News) Federal and Arizona officials, including Governor Brewer, were sent a letter by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) to stop enforcing a requirement banning kids from creating ornaments with religious themes for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree. Click here to read the entire letter. Arizona was given the honor of providing Washington D.C. their annual Christmas tree and having schoolchildren from around the state decorate the tree with some 4,000 ornaments....

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - This year many Christmas gifts have taken a political tone. Obama gifts have overtaken Tickle-Me Elmo and Nintendo Wii as the most popular gifts of the year. Some believe the Barack Obama presidency may have given the economy a boost even before he takes office. Many small stores have struggled in the tough economy. Some retailers say the sale of Obama merchandise has helped their slumping sales. The merchandise has become a hot item that comes in every shape and size. Tucked away in a little corner on Jefferson Street, a small specialty bookstore has suddenly transformed...

Christmas Dinner Causes Global Warming By Noel Sheppard Created 2008-12-25 12:31 First it's Christmas lights [0], now it's Christmas dinner...causing global warming. Yep. People who cook more than their guests will eat and throw the food away are destroying the planet. I'm not kidding. ABCNews.com in Australia reported [1] the following absurdity on Christmas Eve: Wasted food at Christmas time is now being highlighted as an environmental problem. Jon Dee, the chairman of Do Something, says gases from leftover food rotting in landfill are 20 times more potent than the carbon pollution from car exhausts. Mr Dee says there are...

<p>SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs. CSIRO researchers said householders should know that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases.</p>

The right-wing crusade against the liberal "war on Christmas" is great for rallying the troops. Too bad the war doesn't exist. In 1959, the recently formed John Birch Society issued an urgent alert: Christmas was under attack. In a JBS pamphlet titled "There Goes Christmas?!" a writer named Hubert Kregeloh warned, "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas -- to denude the event of its religious meaning." The central front in this perfidious assault was American department stores, where...

A public school teacher in Mississippi marked down an eleven-year-old’s Christmas poem assignment and told the boy to rewrite it because he used the word “Jesus,” which, the instructor explained, is a name not allowed in school. Liberty Counsel, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, reports that sixth-grader Andrew White of Hattiesburg, Miss., chose to write the poem on the assignment “What Christmas means to me.” After White turned in his rough draft, however, his teacher circled the word “Jesus” and deducted a point from his grade. The teacher then explained that he needed to rewrite the poem...

My son was playing on Nick Jr.'s Free Draw making a Christmas tree and when he went to write 'merry Christmas' The program would not allow him to type the word Christmas on his drawing. The error message was "Word Blocked" (also blocked where the words and phrases: Savior, Pope, Blessed virgin Mary, St. Nick, Hark the herald angels sing, Silent night, Away in the manger, no crib for his head, and even 'Obama is the AntiChrist', but I think it was because of the word Christ, not Obama, because I was able to write his name alone.) I was...

A woman has spoken of how she was told to remove her Christmas lights by a housing association worker - in case they offended her non-Christian neighbors.

A school choir was forced to withdraw from a Christmas event because organisers branded its carols 'too religious'. Around 60 children aged between seven and 11 had spent six weeks practising favourites including Once In Royal David's City and Silent Night for the Corringham Winter Festival. But they were let down at the last minute when their headteacher was informed their programme did not 'dovetail' with the festival's theme.

<p>AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A Dutch gay group said Monday it has planned a "Pink Christmas" festival for the first time in Amsterdam, featuring a manger stall with two Josephs and two Marys.</p> <p>Other attractions in the 10-day festival include parties, an open-air market, gay-themed films, an ice skating rink and religious services on Dec. 25.</p>

SNSC leaders discuss propriety of anti-Judeo-Christian message on the nationally syndicated Laurie Roth radio show Thomas Brejcha, President of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society and Daniel Zanoza, Executive Director of RFFM.org and Chairman of the Springfield Nativity Scene Committee (SNSC) will guest on the nationally syndicated Laurie Roth Show [www.therothshow.com] on Monday, December 8th, from 5 - 6 P.M. Central Time. Brejcha, legal counsel for the SNSC and Zanoza will discuss the Springfield, Illinois Nativity scene which is now standing in the center of the Illinois state Capitol Rotunda. Brejcha and Zanoza will also be responding to an atheist group's...

Surprise fireworks as FNC’s most combative anchor tries to explain the First Amendment to its most combative commentator. Good luck, Megyn! My knowledge of FA jurisprudence is rusty, but isn’t the crucial distinction between the atheism case and O’Reilly’s MLK/KKK hypothetical the fact that one of them touches on religion and the other doesn’t? The Establishment Clause prevents the state from endorsing religion over no religion, but there’s nothing in the Free Speech Clause preventing it from endorsing one non-religious viewpoint over another. The fact that MLK Day is a federal holiday doesn’t mean we have to have Klan Day,...

Christmas trees that have graced the two main libraries at the University of North Carolina won't be displayed this year, after numerous complaints, The Charlotte Observer reported. The trees have stood in the lobbies of Wilson and Davis libraries at the Chapel Hill campus during December. This year, they are being kept in storage. Sarah Michalak, the associate provost for university libraries, told the newspaper that she made the decision after several years of complaints from employees and others. “We strive in our collection to have a wide variety of ideas,” she said. “It doesn't seem right to celebrate one...

(CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch. An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.

I thought it would be safe," Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN. "It's always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It's not something you get used to." The sign, which celebrated the winter solstice, had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth. "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation said in part. The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was...

Here is a sample of how diversity is being celebrated this December: · Elementary school students in Plainfield, Illinois are decorating a “Holiday” tree that represents 18 countries. · A “Holiday Revelry” will be performed at the Framingham Civic League in Massachusetts; it is a “multicultural” event that includes “PAC Sword Dancers” and “traditional” Christmas songs such as “Pat-A-Pan.” · “Winter Traditions” will be celebrated at the Fort Collins Museum in Colorado. They include “Celebrations of Light” that highlight “traditions, cultures and celebrations from across the world.” · At a high school in Ocean City, Maryland, the annual “Winter Concert”...

Two Moroccans arrested in Italy yesterday wanted to blow up the Milan Cathedral on Christmas. They hoped an attack during the busy holiday would cost dozens of lives. This according to tapped phone calls, reports La Repubblica. The two belonged to an Islamic terror cell which had been followed by the Italian police already for months... Rachid Ilhami (31) and Abdelkader Ghafir (43) were arrested in Giussano, a city 25km away from Milan. The detectives gathered from tapped phone calls and confiscated computer files that the two also prepared attacks on a supermarket and a police bureau. They are arrested...

Greenwood Junior School sent out a letter to parents saying the three-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which takes place between December 8 and 11, meant that Muslim children would be off school. That meant planning for the traditional nativity play were shelved because the school felt it would be too difficult to run both celebrations side by side. The move has left parents furious. Janette Lynch, whose seven-year-old son Keanu attends the school, in Sneinton, Nottingham, said: "The head has a whole year to plan for Eid and so she should be able to plan for both religious festivals. "I...

OLYMPIA -- An anti-religion billboard in the Washington state Capitol has started a firestorm on national television. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly had an eight-minute segment on his show Tuesday night decrying the inclusion of the atheistic billboard along with a holiday tree and a Christian nativity scene. Conservative TV personality O'Reilly called the display "political correctness gone mad" and urged viewers to call Gov. Chris Gregoire's office to complain. Gregoire spokesman Pearse Edwards says the office has been getting about 200 calls an hour, as well as e-mails. The Capitol has had a holiday tree, provided by the Association of...

British parents looking to see their children in a traditional Christmas play are fuming after a school decided to cancel the performance because it conflicts with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reported. Officials at the Greenwood Junior School in Nottingham decided to postpone the annual holiday performance because it would have been too difficult to have both the Christmas and Eid celebrations together, The Telegraph reported. But parents told The Telegraph that they were originally told the performance was canceled because Muslim children wanted to celebrate Eid with their families, making it difficult to schedule...