Posted on 11/26/2005 12:00:04 PM PST by pissant
ENCINITAS – Three community groups and members of a Jewish temple are boycotting this year's holiday parade because the city reverted to a name that they said discriminates against non-Christian religions: the Christmas Parade.
Mayor Dan Dalager said he used his prerogative as mayor to ask staff members to change the name.
"Some years ago, someone in their bureaucratic wiseness decided to change the name to Holiday Parade. I just changed it back to its historically correct name," he said. "It's no big deal.
"There is a Christian holiday called Christmas that is celebrated in churches, and there is a Christian holiday called Christmas that is about Santa Claus and reindeer and snowmen and getting together with family and friends and having parades and all this stuff," Dalager said. "We are celebrating the American holiday called Christmas."
He said he will not change the name back.
The annual parade along South Coast Highway 101, the city's main drag, will be held Dec. 3 starting at 5:30 p.m.
Critics of the name change said the city is turning back the clock on religious and cultural tolerance at a time when many organizations have changed their Christmas celebrations to religion-neutral names, such as December Nights at Balboa Park instead of Christmas on the Prado.
They said the city should not favor a religion when it spends $4,000 to organize the parade, and they are trying to figure out how to change the name back to Holiday Parade.
"It is the ignorance that bothers me, the philosophy, the desire to exclude people, whether intentional or not," said Olivenhain resident Nan Sterman, who is Jewish.
Three community groups that had participated in previous parades have pulled out or indicated they will not take part this year because of the name change, said Chris Hazeltine, the city's parks and recreation director.
They are Leucadia Town Council, Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Southern California and Girl Scouts Seacoast Service Unit in Encinitas.
Rabbi David Frank of Temple Solel said many of the 800 households in his congregation will not attend.
"It makes it very difficult, obviously, to participate in this specifically Christian observance," Frank said.
Hazeltine said the mayor changed the parade's name at the beginning of this year when the city began planning its events.
Some critics accused Dalager of soliciting the support of two other council members in secret to switch from the Holiday Parade, violating the "Ralph M., Brown Act," which deems illegal any secret meetings among a majority of a legislative body.
Dalager denied the allegations and said he acted alone.
The number of community organizations applying to participate this year has dropped from last year's 95 to 82, Hazeltine said.
Last year's event attracted 30,000 spectators, city officials said.
Jennifer Zaayer, vice president of Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Southern California, said participating in the event would be taking a step backward.
"This reeks of a political time when people have their own agendas," she said. "I was shocked it was changed without being on the agenda for public comment."
Doubt if I'll lose any sleep over thinking that either!
You know, the one thing that seriuosly offends me is people who make a profession out of being offended. I'd love it if my Jewish friends and neighbors had a Hanukkah parade, Hanukkah decorations. I'd truly enjoy celebrating with them this historic event and God's intervention in it.
Unfortunately, there are many liberals "of the cloth". They may not tell fibs on purpose (always), but their pathetic world view keeps them from seeing the truth.
LOL. And Merry Christmas back at you!
Amen. We have a common enemy and if they win, there will be NO Christmas, and NO Hannukah, let alone parades. We have a lot more in common with each other than we do with the Muzzles.
Mayor
Dan Dalager
(760) 633-2624
ddalager@ci.encinitas.ca.us
Heh, heh, heh...
-PJ
Hey, celebrate diversity, folks! Then have your own parade.
Wonder how many more people will attend because it was changed back to a "Christmas Parade'.
Don't even have to guess. A liberal, without a doubt. And if they want to have a Jewish Holiday parade, I'm fully supportive.
LOL. Perfect!! And the sad part is there are very few who deserve such an award!
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Ahem. Religious tolerance means you tolerate other peoples' beliefs even if you don't share them. Intolerance is when you demand that others be deprived of their First Amendment rights to religious expression because their beliefs differ from yours.
These idiots got it backwards. They don't realize that if there is no tolerance for Christianity, eventually that intolerance will be directed at them, too.
Personally, I welcome religious expression even if it differs from my methods, practices or beliefs. Freedom for others means freedom for me, too. The only way to make these people feel good is to have a totalitarian clampdown on all religious expression, but then the atheists and secularists are allowed their freedom of (non)relgious expression.
The amazing thing is that so many don't get this.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
(Note to Mayor: Christmas isn't an "Amercian" holiday, and Santa Claus, reindeer and snowmen, although perhaps benign in their way, have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus...)
That's how I operate. ;)
Unfotunately, the PATHETIC school system in Seattle (and many liberal cities eleswhere, I'm sure), don't even put Christmas on their school calenders.
I echo that!
Better yet, reading some later posts, let's have a 'Season of Light' parade - lots of blue and silver, green and red, and lot of Menorahs and Christmas tree lights blazing. Come, let us stand together.
In 1976 I was in grad school driving a Volksie robins egg blue beetle. When the war broke out, I made a flew an Israel flag high off the antenna until Israel was victorious.
ROFL. I love it. I'm gonna save that one.
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