Posted on 02/22/2005 9:39:21 PM PST by Coleus
By AFA Journal
February 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - Across the nation during the holidays, efforts to strip away some of the traditions associated with Christmas met with determined resistance. The issue promises to be a hot spot in the culture war this year.
In one of the most dramatic demonstrations of citizen indignation, voters in Mustang, Oklahoma, voted against bond measures that had asked citizens to pony up almost $11 million for new education projects. The reason for the vote results? The superintendent had decided that a Nativity scene did not belong in the elementary school's Christmas program.
According to Associated Press (AP), closing Christmas plays with the Nativity and the singing of "Silent Night" has long been a tradition in Mustang.
But Superintendent Karl Springer, concerned that the Nativity might be in violation of the so-called constitutional separation of church and state, was advised by the school district's attorney to drop the scene. However, symbols of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa were included in the play, as were a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus, AP said.
Springer took the attorney's advice, and paid the price at the ballot box. The bond issues were defeated, marking the first time in more than 10 years that the school district was denied the money it had asked the voters to provide.
Tim Pope, a former seven-term member of the Oklahoma state legislature, led the effort to defeat the bond measures. "You have to send a signal and tell them you're not going to stand for it," he said. "You've got to tell them you're not going to sit by and let them take away your rights."
The next step may be a lawsuit against the school district to ensure that Christianity is treated fairly, said Shelly Marino, one of the parents who complained about Springer's actions. "We are all educated people, we could work this out and not have it split the community," she said. "We don't want a lawsuit, but we're not going to go away. The fight has been started and we're going to see it through to the end."
Similar fights sprang up in other communities across the country. In Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, citizens demanded that "Merry Christmas" simply be added to the "Season's Greetings" sign that adorned the main government building, according to AP.
Attempts to extirpate Christmas also produced brouhahas in Kansas, Massachusetts, Colorado and elsewhere. In Plano, Texas, parents had to go to federal district court in order to preserve the right of school children to hand out items with religious messages at "winter break parties."
In the private sector, some Christians alleged that more and more businesses were replacing signs and personal greetings of "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings."
In California, for example, the Committee to Save Merry Christmas was organized to sponsor a boycott of Federated Department Stores, which owns such names as Bloomingdale's and Macy's. The group's website claimed that Federated "deliberately and intentionally removed from their decorations and advertising" the traditional greeting in favor of the more politically correct one.
And according to the Rutherford Institute, a non-profit civil liberties group, some drivers for United Parcel Service (UPS) complained that the company told them not to wish customers a "Merry Christmas." UPS has denied those claims.
"I think the businesses and the schools have just gone too far; this is the final straw," said Rutherford Insitutute president John W. Whitehead.
Christmas is over.
BIG BUMP!!!
Great post!
....and bookmarked.
Hit the destroyers where they feel it most. Their free ride is fast coming to an end.
But the culture war isn't. Fight or get out of the way.
Celebrating the birth of our savior should never be over,
though I know the holiday has passed.
I do appreciate this thread.
If businesses can't wish me a Merry Christmas, then they'll break into the black without a dime from me.
What is truly hypocritical is that they won't wish me a Merry Christmas, but they'll sure have those After Christmas Sales.
Boycott them.
Most Christians hold C. S. Lewis in high regard.
In his book, "The Joyful Christian," he regards our Christmas traditions to run quite contrary to what Christ would have wanted and what the Bible would otherwise suggest.
Of course, his book was written more than 50 years ago when Christians were different.
Now, we Christians aspire to other standards, like a per capita divorce rate higher than either the US national average or that of Atheists.
What a wonderful world it can be.
"...but they'll sure have those After Christmas Sales."
So true. I've alread begun to exercise my right to not spend where I don't want to spend.
From savemerrychristmas.org/:
Click here to see what you can do in your own area.
List of Federated Department Store chains:
Bloomingdale's
Lazarus-Macy's
Bon-Macy's
Macy's East
Burdine's-Macy's
Macy' West
Goldsmith's-Macy's
Rich's Macy's
Christmas is over. >>
Everyday is Christmas and Easter...
I boycott them year round.
A lot of what you have said is very true, but it is important to take into account that these statistics also include those individuals who claim to be evanglical Christian's, but truly are not.
Though it's quite unfortunate that commericalism rules the day during a time when we should be recognizing what is truly important, I do enjoy the Christmas season. And our family celebrates it in such a way that we honor Christ, not the materials.
That idiot Springer fell for the old "constitutional separation of church and state" lie? Har!!! Good. Then he and his school district got what they deserved.
For over forty years the athiests of the ACLU and their Democrat enablers have leaned on a throw-away line by Hugo Black in a June 1962 decision (ENGEL v. VITALE) where Black used the phrase "constitutional wall of separation between Church and State". (Thomas Jefferson used a similar phrase in a different two hundreds earlier, but it was the use of the phrase by Ku Klux Klanner Black in 1962 that has been twisted and distorted recently by the ACLU.)
Here is the most interesting paragraph from (ENGEL v. VITALE) (my emphasis):
"The petitioners contend among other things that the state laws requiring or permitting use of the Regents' prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause because that prayer was composed by governmental officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs. For this reason, petitioners argue, the State's use of the Regents' prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State. We agree with that contention since we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government."
See how "government.... composing official prayers" has been perverted over the past 40 years by the athiests of the ACLU and the Democrat Party into today's sick attack on the free expression of religious values and traditional American values in general?
Kids are being sent home from school for wearing crucifixes; honors graduates are being told they are not allowed to refer to their religion in their graduation speeches; teachers are warned to tread carefully when they get to that part of the Declaration of Independence where it refers to "our Creator"; traditional Christmas concerts are gone from schools; and hundred-year-old monuments with reference to the Ten Commandments are being removed in little towns in the Midwest. Etc.
It's sick.
The scumbags of the ACLU are domestic enemies of the United States who must be confronted and defeated. It is VERY ENCOURAGING to read (above) that people are finally getting fed up and are fighting back.
Thanks for the post, Coleus.
Yes, this year was the final straw. It should have been the final straw about 10 years ago.
Yeah, and higher than homosexuals, too.
Fervent prayer, and home education.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.