Posted on 10/16/2004 7:46:18 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Baker officials hope to ban 'satanic' holiday
By CHUCK HUSTMYRE Special to The Advocate
BAKER -- Ghosts and goblins, costumed superheroes, even little girls dressed up like Cinderella -- none may be welcome on the streets of Baker next year if some city officials get their way and drive Halloween out of town. "We're going to introduce an ordinance to stop Halloween -- period," City Councilman Fred Russell said.
During this week's City Council meeting, Russell announced that he was in favor of eliminating Halloween beginning in 2005.
Russell is not alone in taking this stance because throughout the Bible Belt this October, others are speaking out on religious grounds against celebrating Halloween on Oct. 31 since it falls on a Sunday.
Russell told council members he hears from 10 to 15 people each year asking him to ban Baker's Halloween celebration. "People don't like it," he said.
What disturbs some people about Halloween, particularly church leaders, is its association with witchcraft and anti-Christian values, Russell said.
At the council meeting, Russell declared, "We are a Christian city. Jesus is lord over Baker."
However, Russell acknowledged that any ordinance aimed at banning Halloween would need council approval.
Mayor Harold Rideau said he, too, supports the idea of ditching Halloween.
"That's one day I don't support," Rideau said. "It's not really a day you want to celebrate as a Christian."
Halloween started as a Celtic New Year celebration in honor of the dead. It began long before the foundation of Christianity and continued after the Roman conquest of what is now Britain in A.D. 43. Halloween was first observed in the United States in the 1840s.
Because Oct. 31 falls on a Sunday this year -- a day of worship for many Christians --Mayor Rideau said a lot of people in Baker felt it is an inappropriate day on which to celebrate Halloween.
"It's also a safety issue," Rideau explained Friday. He said it is dangerous to have excited children running around on the streets after dark.
The council voted Tuesday to change this year's trick-or-treating in Baker from Sunday, Oct. 31, to Thursday, Oct. 28, between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Councilman Charles Vincent is adamant in his desire to see Baker give Halloween the brush off. "I would like to see us eliminate it entirely," he said.
Vincent described Halloween as a satanic celebration and said that honoring it on any day of the week is wrong.
Police Chief Sid Gautreaux said that although it might disappoint his grandchildren, he is not a fan of Halloween.
Trick-or-treating requires Gautreaux to put three times the normal number of patrol cars out on the street. It also eats up a big chunk of his overtime budget. "It wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least bit if they cut it out," he said.
Yet, despite some support from city officials for striking the celebration of Halloween from Baker's calendar, children don't need to toss out their trick-or-treat bags just yet.
Three of the five members of the City Council said they oppose doing away with Halloween. Councilmen Jimmy Pourciau, A.J. Walls and Trae Welch all said they would oppose any move to get rid of the annual costume and candy fest.
"I don't have no problem with Halloween," Walls said. "I always enjoyed it when I was a kid." He said it is one of the few times of the year when people actually get out and meet their neighbors. "I don't think it has nothing to do with witchcraft," Walls added.
Councilman Trae Welch, who is also a lawyer, said any proposed ordinance to ban Halloween would almost certainly run into immediate legal problems. He said the City Council cannot enact an ordinance barring someone from dressing up in a costume and knocking on a neighbor's door, either on Halloween or any other day.
Welch said the council doesn't have the authority to tell people what they can and cannot celebrate. If the issue of banning Halloween does come up for a vote, Welsh said he has already made his decision. "I know I wouldn't vote for it," he said.
Other city officials encourage safe trick-or-treating. Fire Chief Danny Edwards said firefighters will hand out candy at the fire station on Oct. 28.
No messing with holiday
East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Bobby Simpson said Friday after he announced trick-or-treating would fall on Sunday, the traditional Halloween day, "I didn't get one phone call."
"I did get an e-mail from a lady in Baker, but Baker is going to do its own thing," he said.
The one piece of advice former Mayor-President Tom Ed McHugh gave him when he took over the Mayor's Office nearly four years ago was not to mess with Halloween, Simpson said.
In 1993, McHugh moved it off of a Sunday night to the preceding Friday night and suffered a lot of criticism over it. In 1999, McHugh suggested moving the hours from the usual 6 p.m.-8 p.m. to 4 p.m.-6 p.m., because there are more police on that shift. Again, he was haunted by critics of that decision, too.
Zachary follows neighbors
Mayor Charlene Smith of Zachary, who was asked Friday if any opposition had surfaced to Zachary's plans to observe Halloween on Oct. 31, replied, "We haven't heard any complaints about it."
She added, "We usually follow whatever Baker and East Baton Rouge do."
Told that the Baker City Council on Tuesday night switched Baker's trick-or-treat hours from Oct. 31 to Oct. 28, Smith replied, "We haven't heard about it."
Well I hate to remind protestants of their own history but on that same day in 1517 Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses. Maybe they can dress up as pissed off Christians
Halloween , Oct. 31, the eve of All Saints' Day, observed with traditional games and customs. The word comes from medieval England's All Hallows' eve (Old Eng. hallow=“saint”). Witches and other evil spirits were believed to roam the earth on this evening, playing tricks on human beings to mark the season of diminishing sunlight. Bonfires were lit, offerings were made of dainty foods and sweets, and people would disguise themselves as one of the roaming spirits, to avoid demonic persecution. Survivals of these early practices can be found in countries of Celtic influence today, such as the United States where children go from door to door in costumes demanding “trick or treat.”
Silly candy holiday indeed! BTW, it's the second most sacred day of the year for witchcraft. Bet ya didn't know that.
I think it's a stupid day all that aside. You can't trust the candy anymore b/c some nutjob always poisons a bunch making the "razor blades in apples" while we were kids seem like a funny prank. Now with terrorism, I wouldn't let my kids touch anything given to them by anyone but my immediate neighbors.
People move around so much these days that there's less and less a sense of community anywhere anymore. The last few years I think we've had maybe two people stop by, and over like 6 or 7 years I mean. It's a dying "holiday."
I think it's stupid anyway. I lost interest in it when I was 13 and had a tree all rigged up with TP setting it on fire with explosives/fireworks hanging out of my pockets when the mother of the kids I babysat for walked by. I hung my head in shame and haven't participated since.
http://www.celticspirit.org/samhain.htm
Pronounced "Sow-en", not Sam Hain.
Bump for your remarks.
At the council meeting, Russell declared, "We are a Christian city. Jesus is lord over Baker."
Sorry folks, but's it's yahoos like these that give people like Kerry and his ilk opportunities to take cheap shots at conservatives. And it is also proof that the poison of political correctness can come from the right as well as the left, although it is not anywhere near as pervasive.
Well, get a John Kerry mask, because he and Edwards are witch doctors.
Will Baker start giving out snakes for handling on Oct.31 now? I am so glad I left Baton Rouge back in 1993. Had enough of the Jimmy Swaggart followers.
Some other links:
http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/samhain/1031_samhain_history.html
http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/samhain/1031_the_cave.html
http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/samhain/1031_blessing2001.html
More: http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/xsamhain.html
http://www.wicca.com/celtic/akasha/samhainlore.htm
Either way, it's either a christian superstition, which makes no sense, or a wiccan holy-day. For christians, the Bible is clear, 1 Thess. 5:22 states plainly:
21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;
22 abstain from every form of evil.
I don't partake but also don't care if others do. That's their business, not mine. In addition to those instructions, I just happen to think that the designs of Halloween are stupid. I don't mind a good autumn party, but costume parties really annoy me for some reason. LOL I'd rather go watch a good football game.
Yeah, of course...
LOL!!
Survivals of these early practices can be found in countries of Celtic influence today, such as the United States where children go from door to door in costumes demanding “trick or treat.”
Have you heard of the tradition of "soul cakes" kids used to beg for? These were supposed to be baked in offering for the Souls in Purgatory. The kids used to go around and ask for them. Hence, early "trick or treat."
From Poole, Customs, Superstitions, and Legends of Staffordshire, quoted from the English publication Bilston Mercury:
Soul Day, Soul Day
We be come-a souling
Pray good people remember the poor
And give us a soul-cake
One for Peter, Two for Paul
Three for Him that made us all
An apple, a plum, a pear, or a cherry
Or any good thing to make us merry
Soul Day, Soul Day,
We have been praying for the soul departed
So pray good people give us a cake
For all we poor people,
Well known to you before,
So give us a cake for charity's sake
And our blessing we'll leave at your door.
Hardly a satanic intention, imho.
They should get a life.
Soon enough, there'll be a Daily Show segment on this, and the smart New York set will laugh themselves silly while Jon Stewart pops off a couple of witty remarks tying Bush and conservatives in with the Baker crowd. I can see it now.
In fact, what this comes down to is simple; as you said, we have more important things to worry about.
There seems to be some sort of belief among Christians that this is their world when Jesus said the exact opposite. It's evil (Eph. 5:16 - making the most of your time, because the days are evil.), not primarily good. Anyone with God-given wisdom has absolutely no trouble seeing this today. The founding fathers understood this fully. Thus the establishment of America.
It's a world continually overrun with evil where good only prospers according to God's designs, not ours. It's important to realize that.
As you said, there are more important issues. Besides, you cannot legislate morality as many have said, even some Dims recently even though their statements did not have the same premises as they do when conservatives say the same.
You can't legislate the heart, which is what something like this would do. Those who are opposed to "halloween on Sunday" simply shouldn't partake just as I choose not to regardless of which day it's on.
It's quite the same with the "Ten Commandments" in schools. Not that I'm against that, but the greater issue is lost in the battle to put a stone set of tablets into a "government" building. What, will the stones cause people to say, "ahh, I see where I've been wrong all these years"? No, obviously not.
The greater issue is one of morality and given the Bible's history, coupled with what it says about the end of the world (being as in the days prior to the flood in Noah's time) I'm not sure there's much we can do about it.
The effort is to stave off the inevitable and simply delay it, not alter it completely. There may be peace and safety worldwide, but it won't be at the hands of God. The Bible clearly indicates otherwise.
But the founding fathers knew full well that the tendency of men was towards power, control, and greed and away from Judeo-Christian morality . That's why they wrote the founding documents as they did. They also recognized that it would take a moral (in a judeo-christian sense) majority to make it work.
The fact that that very thing is being threatened is more a reflection of the inner morals, or lack thereof in that same sense, than it is of anything else. We are, or perhaps have, approached a point where the moral majority necessary to maintain the governmental design that we have is being threatened in spades. Passing laws won't change that. All that people can do is fight to maintain things to that they don't get out of control and continue to live their lives within those moral boundaries and teach those around them the same. The hope is that the ranks of the moral will once again grow to a majority capable of sustaining this nation as the founding fathers intended it.
They were quite brilliant in that regard.
Through all of that, the same system of self-governance requires that everyone have their own choice or freedom of religion. It is a large catch-22 however given that the further one gets from those Judeo-Christian morals, the less likely it is to maintain such a form of government with the freedoms that it offers. Sadly, those opposed to that moral majority are blinded to those facts. Their anti-god stance and lack of standards in morality make anything even remotely close to that impossible.
You could write entire volumes on this.
No matter how you slice it, they have no morals or ethics.
Anyone who can't explain to me why a baby born three months prematurely is a baby while the same exact baby cut to shreds inside a womb b/c it doesn't have to be delivered prematurely is not, has no morals! It really is that simple.
Halloween is a wonderful, fun Christian holiday ruined by extremists.
"the kind of thing that makes Christians look ridiculous"
I agree, and its the sort of behavior that makes liberals look ridiculous too as they have attempted and succeeded banning Christian traditions from public discourse.
Enough is enough, peoples traditions shouldn't hurt anybody, whether they are Christian or secular, this country should be free to allow expression, even in government, and if the people don't like their government, then they can elect a new one with religiose beliefs as their own.
Sure they do, when they pretend to have them in front of stupid people.
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