Wal-Mart: We're not afraid to say Merry Christmas

No. 1 retailer has decided to abandon its generic 'Happy Holidays' greeting in favor of 'Merry Christmas.' NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Wal-Mart has told its employees that it's OK to once again greet shoppers by saying "Merry Christmas" this holiday season instead of the generic "Happy Holidays." CNN confirmed that Wal-Mart will announce Thursday that it plans to use the phrase "Merry Christmas" in products and around its stores this holiday season. The announcement comes a year after religious groups such as The American Family Association and The Catholic League boycotted retailers including Wal-Mart last holiday season for excluding the word "Christmas" from products sold in stores. "We, quite frankly, have learned a lesson from last year," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Linda Blakley told USA Today in a separate report. "We're not afraid to use the term 'Merry Christmas.' We'll use it early, and we'll use it often." Besides resurrecting its Christmas pitch, the retailer is also determined to be the leader in this year's holiday price wars. The November-December holiday shopping period is a critical time for merchants since it can account for as much as 50 percent of their profits and sales. To that end, Wal-Mart was the first out of the gate to chop prices on toys and electronics much ahead of its competitors like Target (Charts), Toys 'R Us, Costco (Charts) and others. To support its Christmas deals, the report said Wal-Mart will launch TV ads next week that trumpet "Christmas." It's changing the name of its seasonal decorations department to "The Christmas Shop" from "The Holiday Shop." Moreover, Wal-Mart stores will play Christmas carols throughout the holiday period and about 60 percent more merchandise will be labeled as "Christmas" rather than "holiday" items, the paper said.

Actually, Xmas is a traditional Chrisitian spelling - with the X representing the cross. Not secular and certainly not anti-Christian.

Also the Greek letter Chi, which has been symbolic of Christ for centuries. Xmas isn't something invented by 20th-century atheists.

As far as "happy holidays" being a slap in the face of every Christian, aren't we the site that takes liberals to task for taking offense where none is intended?

I'm convinced that there are some folks who are so offended by the marginalization of Christian messages in public that they've swung back too far in the opposite direction. Folks who, if they sneeze and someone says simply "Bless you," will get offended that they didn't say "God bless you in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and savior, amen."

Personally, I think it's a pretty poor sort of faith that needs affirmation from retail store clerks.

1. Prayer our of our schools

It never left. It's just not a group activity led by an employee. It's been said, only half-jokingly, that anyone who thinks there's no prayer in schools has never watched students while exam papers are being handed out.

2. Can't take a bible to work with you or display it while at work.

I missed all the stories about employers rifling through desk drawers and briefcases and confiscating Bibles.

3. No nativity scene on public property

Not on government property, unless other groups with other messages are also allowed to post their own displays. I've never understood the outrage over this one, because in all my travels I've rarely seen a town square that didn't have a church within a hundred yards.

4. No crosses to be used on grave sites

Pure BS. Cite an example.

5. Take In God we trust out of the pledge of allegiance

In God we Trust was never in the Pledge.

6. Can't display ten commandments on the wall in our Courts, even thou they are displayed in the US Supreme Court.

There's no prohibition against displaying the Ten Commandments in context of the history of law, just against displaying them to the exclusion of all other traditions.

4. "Pure BS. Cite an example."

You should do your home work before you call someone a lier!
Read on:

A plan to move it gets tentative OK

By Ray Huard
STAFF WRITER

March 31, 2004

The Mount Soledad cross would be taken down and moved to a church or other privately owned land under a tentative agreement presented to the San Diego City Council in a closed meeting yesterday.

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The proposed deal to end a 15-year legal fight has the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, the lawyer for the self-described atheist who filed the federal lawsuit challenging the cross' presence on city-owned land and the Mount Soledad Association, which maintains the 43-foot-tall cross and a veterans memorial around it.

Federal courts have repeatedly ruled that the cross violates the California Constitution's "no preference clause," which prohibits religious symbols on public land.

City Attorney Casey Gwinn said the City Council voted unanimously in closed session yesterday to consider the proposal in a public hearing along with two other options. No date has been set for the hearing.

The other choices, Gwinn said, are for the city to continue what has been a losing court fight to keep the cross in place or to try for a third time to sell the land around the cross to a buyer who could keep or remove the cross.

Gwinn said he has not decided which action to recommend, but said he would advise against further litigation because the city would likely lose.

Relocating the cross is favored by the Mount Soledad Association and lawyers for the ACLU and atheist Philip Paulson because it would allow the association to retain ownership of the land and the nearly $1 million in memorial walls the group has erected at the foot of the cross.

"That is the most viable, most intelligent and most reasonable resolution," said James McElroy, Paulson's lawyer. Relocating the cross removes the constitutional issue, he said. "I hope the City Council wholeheartedly endorses this."

Jordan Budd, managing attorney for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, said relocating the cross and allowing the association to keep the land as a nonsectarian memorial is the least complicated option. The ACLU joined McElroy in handling court appeals of the cross litigation.

"We would prefer that the city not destroy the cross but remove it to some other venue, somehow place it in the hands of a private party that would like to display the cross on private land," Budd said.

William Kellogg, the association's president, said his group would prefer to keep the cross in place, "but that appears to be impossible at this point.

"Our goal is to honor veterans, whatever happens," he said, and keeping the site as a memorial would make that possible.

The association has erected six concrete walls at the foot of the cross. The walls have room for 3,200 granite plaques honoring individual veterans. Each plaque costs from $600 to $1,000.

The dispute over the cross began in 1989, when Paulson filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city's ownership of the land under the cross. The city has offered various proposals to resolve the suit, but nothing has worked.

After voters approved selling the cross property in a 1992 ballot measure, the city in 1994 sold 224 square feet of land at the base of the cross for $24,000 to the Mount Soledad Association. The association has maintained the cross since 1952 as a memorial to Korean War veterans. A federal judge rejected the sale in September 1997 because it wasn't open to competitive bidding. In 1998, a half-acre of land around the cross was sold to the association for $106,000. The association submitted the highest among five bids, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2002 said that sale too was improper because sale procedures gave an edge to the association over groups that would remove the cross and who therefore had to include removal costs in their bids.

The case has cost the city $230,000 in legal fees, which it agreed to pay the ACLU and McElroy after losing at the appeals court, Gwinn said. He was unable to estimate how much his office spent internally on the case.

If the council approves the latest deal, who will pay to relocate the cross must still be negotiated, McElroy said.

5. Your Right "One Nation under God is, but, you already know that, and my intent was to demonstrate that "In God we Trust" will be the next thing on the hit parade of the secular progressives!

6. Tell that to the US Supreme Court. Only the ten commandments are currently displayed on the wall. But, since the secular progressives hate a traditional America, it was important to make sure they were removed from all other Courts. I bet the Koran could be displayed without a suit from the communist ACLU.

And, that is the BS for the day!

4. "Pure BS. Cite an example."

You should do your home work before you call someone a lier!

I did not call you a lier. Or even a liar. A lie is something the speaker knows to be false when he says it. If someone is credulous, or ill-informed, and repeats something he has heard, that is not a lie. It's an error.

I called your argument BS, and asked you to support it. I did not, and will not, attack you as a person. That is not, as the kids say, how I roll. I will attack your arguments when I disagree, but if I ever issue a personal insult in the heat of the moment, call me on it and I will apologize.

The Mount Soledad cross

... is not a grave site. No bodies are buried there. Furthermore, your claim of "no crosses to be used on grave sites" would seem to indicate -- by the use of the plural -- a prohibition in more than one site, if not all.

There is no prohibition against the family of any dead person placing a cross on a grave site anywhere in America. It's done hundreds of times a day. If you know otherwise, please let me know.

6. Tell that to the US Supreme Court. Only the ten commandments are currently displayed on the wall.

False. There is a fresco in the Supreme Court chamber that honors law-givers throughout history. The Ten Commandments are there -- in the form of illegible tablets held by Moses (Roman numerals are readable, but not the text) -- and so are the Code of Hammurabi, the Napoleonic Code, the Magna Carta, and a number of other great moments in legal history I'm not remembering just now.

If you decide to display the Ten Commandments, which ten? The Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, and even differing sects among the Protestants, differ on the division and the wording of the Decalogue. If you have one plaque on the wall with one choice of language, you're excluding more people than you're including, even if you don't count non-Christians.

But, since the secular progressives hate a traditional America, it was important to make sure they were removed from all other Courts. I bet the Koran could be displayed without a suit from the communist ACLU.

You'd lose that bet.

". . .is not a grave site. No bodies are buried there. Furthermore, your claim of "no crosses to be used on grave sites" would seem to indicate -- by the use of the plural -- a prohibition in more than one site, if not all."

Oh, Really, the secular progressive Communist are attempting to attack Arlington Cemetery too. This is a memorial for our fallen Soldiers in Korea, you had better believe that this is a grave site. We put crosses up to remember our fallen, whether they are actually laid to rest or it is erected as a memorial to those Soldiers.

Arlington certainly is a cemetery, if you want to split hairs over where the crosses are erected. Here is another story about the secular progressives communist ACLU. and how they have attacked this memorial site for more than 15 years.

ACLU Litigation to Remove San Diego Cross By Jay Sekulow Friday, May 5, 2006 Two days ago, a U.S. District Court judge in California ordered the removal of a cross on the top of Mount Soledad in San Diego, CA. This cross is part of a war memorial that has been in place in some form since 1913 and, in its current form since 1954. The current war memorial is dedicated to the veterans from the Korean War. The ACLU has been seeking the removal of this cross for over 15 years. Interestingly, 75% of the population of San Diego, CA, wants the war memorial to stay in place. Last year Congress passed and the President signed into law a statute that allowed for the federal government to acquire the property and maintain the war memorial. Not surprisingly, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California held that the transfer of property violated the constitution of the State of California. One might ask, “Why are the federal courts interpreting the California constitution?” This is an issue that is still being litigated in the state courts. We have launched a nationwide campaign today in order to protect his monument. Frank Manion, our ACLJ Senior Counsel who has handled the Ten Commandments litigation across the United States, has already sent a letter offering assistance to the mayor of San Diego. On our radio program today, we are also launching a nationwide campaign to petition the mayor, the Governor of California, the President of the United States and the Senate Leader to do everything in their power to preserve this war memorial. One would hope that we have not reached a point in our country where the simple depiction of a cross--which, in a sense, is a universal symbol of remembrance, especially in the military-- would become illegal. Furthermore, one wonders what the ACLU and others would do with the crosses and stars of David depicted throughout Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. After all, Arlington Memorial Cemetery is owned, operated and maintained by our federal government. This is an issue that we will be addressing on a nationwide basis over the coming weeks. It is important for each of you to participate with us in this endeavor. Please log onto our website at www.aclj.org to add your name to what we hope will be over 500,000 people standing up for freedom. Let’s honor our brave men and women by supporting this important war memorial. "this not a grave site. No bodies are buried there. Furthermore, your claim of "no crosses to be used on grave sites" would seem to indicate -- by the use of the plural -- a prohibition in more than one site, if not all."

You are simply blind if you don't believe the secular progressive communist are not after Arlington Cemetery too!

I don't have to prove anything, just look at their past practices and exactly what really offends the ACLU and its ilk - Christianity in America.

"You'd lose that bet.'

DON'T THINK SO, the Nations Public Schools are already allowing prayer rugs, Korans in the Schools, and in fact, on one occasion, they set up a room for Muslim prayer, while telling another Student she could not pray. Of course the other Student was a Christian.

In fact, one school has a Muslim day under the guise of
"diversity" to allow students to have prayer rugs, and pray, and they brought in special food to teach the other children about Ramadan.

You really need to get out more and look what is going on around you. Obviously you support secularism in America, but you will have a very hard time forcing it on all of us.

OH, good, now we can buy cheap Chinese-made crap to decorate our homes or shower on our friends and relatives in meaningless exchanges of gifts, while hearing "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays". I mean, this is a good thing, but I worry more about public schools where the mention of Christmas has been banned, in deference to our multi-cultural society and in defiance of the fact that we (I speak for Canada here, but the same applies to the US, maybe even more so) are a country that is at least culturally Christian, and that remains so even with all the immigration that has occurred. Personally I have never met an immigrant or believer of another faith that had any problem acknowledging this fact - most in fact were perfectly happy to exchange greetings of "Merry Christmas", etc, during the season, despite it not being part of their belief system. In return I try to at least be aware of their major holidays.

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