Posted on 12/03/2004 2:43:25 AM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - A civil liberties organization has published a step-by-step guide to understanding what can and cannot be done to celebrate the holidays in public.
The Rutherford Institute's "The Twelve Rules of Christmas" was compiled because of a growing tendency among public schools and government officials to ban references to Christmas or Christianity during the holiday season.
"Whether through ignorance or fear, Americans are painfully misguided about the recognition of religious holidays," said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute. "Every year we hear many complaints from parents about school officials banning any reference to the word 'Christmas.'
"There is an irrational bias against anything remotely religious unless its sanitized and secularized, and unfortunately far too many parents, students and teachers erroneously believe they cannot do anything to celebrate Christmas in the public schools," said Whitehead.
For example, he said, attorneys for his group recently intervened when a Florida elementary school omitted songs about Christmas from its holiday concert program while including songs celebrating Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the 'winter season."
Also, attorneys addressed the school's fear of violating the so-called 'separation of church and state' by pointing out that not only does the First Amendment's Establishment Clause not mandate that all Christian religious references be banished from the classroom, but that the school's conspicuous exclusion of Christmas from the program was in itself a violation of the Establishment Clause.
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Legal Feature
The Twelve Rules of Christmas (Compiled by attorneys for The Rutherford Institute)
Unfortunately, Christmas has become a time of controversy over what can or cannot be done in terms of celebrating the holiday. In order to clear up much of the misunderstanding, the following twelve rules are offered:
(1) Public school students’ written or spoken personal expressions concerning the religious significance of Christmas (e.g., T-shirts with the slogan, "Jesus Is the Reason for the Season") may not be censored by school officials absent evidence that the speech would cause a substantial disruption.
(2) So long as teachers are generally permitted to wear clothing or jewelry or have personal items expressing their views about the holidays, Christian teachers may not be prohibited from similarly expressing their views by wearing Christmas-related clothing or jewelry or carrying Christmas-related personal items.
(3) Public schools may teach students about the Christmas holiday, including its religious significance, so long as it is taught objectively for secular purposes such as its historical or cultural importance, and not for the purpose of promoting Christianity.
(4) Public school teachers may send Christmas cards to the families of their students so long as they do so on their own time, outside of school hours.
(5) Public schools may include Christmas music, including those with religious themes, in their choral programs if the songs are included for a secular purpose such as their musical quality or cultural value or if the songs are part of an overall performance including other holiday songs relating to Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or other similar holidays.
(6) Public schools may not require students to sing Christmas songs whose messages conflict with the students’ own religious or nonreligious beliefs.
(7) Public school students may not be prohibited from distributing literature to fellow students concerning the Christmas holiday or invitations to church Christmas events on the same terms that they would be allowed to distribute other literature that is not related to schoolwork.
(8) Private citizens or groups may display crèches or other Christmas symbols in public parks subject to the same reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions that would apply to other similar displays.
(9) Government entities may erect and maintain celebrations of the Christmas holiday, such as Christmas trees and Christmas light displays, and may include crèches in their displays at least so long as the purpose for including the crèche is not to promote its religious content and it is placed in context with other symbols of the Holiday season as part of an effort to celebrate the public Christmas holiday through its traditional symbols.
(10) Neither public nor private employers may prevent employees from decorating their offices for Christmas, playing Christmas music, or wearing clothing related to Christmas merely because of their religious content so long as these activities are not used to harass or intimidate others.
(11) Public or private employees whose sincerely held religious beliefs require that they not work on Christmas must be reasonably accommodated by their employers unless granting the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer.
(12) Government recognition of Christmas as a public holiday and granting government employees a paid holiday for Christmas does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
PING!
Jeez, I'd hate to be spending Christmas with the attorneys for The Rutherford Institute.
ACLU = Atheists Communists Losers Union. Funny how they've gone from promoting civil liberties to abolishing Christianity.
If the election was about "moral values", then it was about liberal activist judges legislating from the bench. Well, guess what group enables this kind of dysfunctional judicial behavior - the ACLU (well, among others).
Show me where in the constution it says "seperation of church and state" This country was established as a Christian country and will not survive any other way.
ping
Of all the nauseating, hypocritical statements in this list, this one is the biggest, and makes the rest of the list a joke. They don't want Christmas celebrated in any way, and will establish micro-rules to prevent that from happening, which all the sheeple and administrators will follow, but they're smart enought to know that if they try to take away the holiday, every one will rise up and raise hell.
They know just how far they can go without getting their noses cut off, so they just blithely negate their own position with one statement to avoid that. Evil, fascist, socialist b@$tard$.
Do us Christians still have to use a separate water fountain?
Oh, there is no bias against anything religious, as long as the religion isn't Christianity. Why are they so threatened by Chrisitanity, you may wonder. I would suggest that it is because Jesus Christ is the only Name under heaven by which men might be saved, therefore, the teaching (and learning) of the Scriptures is the only insurmountable obstacle to the implementation of their socialist/communist agenda.
They've never promoted civil liberties. That's just the smokescreen they use to drive their Gramscian wedges into our culture. They are Karl Marx's advance guard, nothing more.
Fortunately for all concerned, I suspect that they'd rather not have you either.
I know I wouldn't.
my 2 rules of Christmas
1> It is the day that we celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate.
2.> tell the civil rights groups to go fornicate themselves.
I made 10 copys and e-mailed it to 2 friends
WOW! try a little Prozac dude.
I have high hopes that the internet (bloggers, etc.) will be able to shine some light (sunshine) into these mo's. Where they get their money (which foundations, etc., promoting what agendas), about their leaders, and especially their case history. I myself would like to see the RICO act applied (I can dream). But sunshine disenfects, congress is starting to wake up about judicial activism, and hopefully the aclu will start to be shouted down.
You're right, I got a little hot there. Liberals and their convoluted logic just get me going.
Did you read the article? The Rutherford Institute is supporting Christians' rights to mention Christmas.
This could also be called the 12 ways to fight the anti-Christmas cops without losing the Christmas spirit.
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