Legislator derides 'holiday tree' in Washington state Capitol

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A state legislator is unhappy that some seasonal greenery in Olympia has been designated the "Capitol Holiday Kids' Tree."

Gov. Christine Gregoire should declare the 30-foot noble fir in the Legislative Building a Christmas tree and post "Merry Christmas" signs nearby, Rep. John Ahern, R-Spokane, said Wednesday on talk radio, urging listeners to call the governor's office.

The current display shows a lack of respect for Christian tradition, Ahern said.

"We're a Judeo-Christian nation. Of course we should have 'Merry Christmas' on signs there," he said. "Our Constitution guarantees us freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."

The tree is named by the Association of Washington Business, which organizes an annual tree-lighting and gift drive for needy youngsters.

"It's the state's unofficial Christmas tree," association president Donald C. Brunell said. "It was not set up to be a poster child for talk radio."

The current designation dates from about 1990, when some lawmakers objected to calling it a Christmas tree, "so we said OK, to be inclusive for everybody, we'll call it the Capitol Holiday Kids' Tree," Brunell said. "Until this year, the tree's name seemed to have hit a happy equilibrium."

Gregoire is not about to rename the tree, "but the governor wanted me to point out that she has a Christmas tree in her office and in her home," spokeswoman Althea Cawley-Murphree said.

so we said OK, to be inclusive for everybody, we'll call it the Capitol Holiday Kids' Tree,"

How is this inclusive to everyone? The Catholics get mad because it is not a Christmas tree and everyone else does not celebrate it at all.

Shouldn't "diversity" and "inclusiveness" be "I respect your religion, you respect mine" instead of "I shouldn't have to look at your religous objects / you shouldn't have to look at mine, on government property" ?

It's all about Cultural Marxism. The Cultural Marxists want people to believe that the world is divided into two groups, those who are "oppressers" and those who are "oppressed".

Since Christians are the overwhelming majority in America, and in the Western world in general, they fall into the "oppresser" category. Calling a Xmas tree a Holiday tree, or a Xmas party a Holiday Party is a way for the horrible oppressers to reach out to the oppressed.

If you're a white, male, hetrosexual, Christian, who earns a decent living, you are automatically a member of five different oppresser groups.

I'd like to refer to what's happening with this case, and all the related cases, as malicious wall-building.

All religions and governments, given enough time, tend to build walls around original laws. What happens, in general, is that they have a law they want to make sure they don't break, so they make another law that encompasses a broader area than the original law. The second law acts as a wall around the first law.

Then, over time, a third wall is built to keep people from breaking the second law. And so on.

I'm not picking on Jewish people, but this is a particularly good example. In the Jewish scriptures, the command is, "Thou shalt not boil a kid in his mother's milk."

To make sure that doesn't happen, the rabbis created a rabbinic law saying that no kid should be boiled in any milk, in case a drop or so of his own mother's milk happended to be in that milk.

Well, that worked pretty good for a while but then the rabbis thought they should make sure the people didn't break that law at all, so they added a rabbinic law that no pots, plates, or dishes that had ever contacted any milk could be used for any meat. The Kosher kitchen was born.

As I said, I'm not picking on the Jewish people. Baptists have laws that forbid dancing, Nazerenes forbid all card playing, and other religions and denominations have their own wall-building laws. None of those laws are written in the scriptures either. They are walls to protect the people from breaking the original laws.

So, by the same token, these rulings by school boards, legislatures, and even the USSC are not required by the Constitution, which forbids Congress from passing any laws that have to do with the establishment of religion. They are walls, built around the 1st Amendment, but there have been so many layers of walls built around the establishment clause that they no longer resemble the Amendment they are supposed to be protecting.

In the first paragraph of this post, I referred to this as malicious wall-building. I say this because the laws and rulings now are actually enforcing the exact opposite of the purpose of the 1st Amendment, and the only way that could happen is if the work were intentional and malicious.

IMO.

Look up the federal regulations defining federal holidays, and you'll find that Dec. 25th is called "Christmas." By the way, the federal holiday now called "Presidents Day" is defined as a celebration of George Washington's birthday.

Now look up the Washington state regs defining state holidays, and you'll find that the December holiday (a contraction of Holy Day, by the way) is defined something like: "The 25th day of December, commonly referred to as Christmas." Thus, our WACs are PC (politically corrupt) in this regard.

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