Posted on 12/11/2006 10:13:29 PM PST by TheBigB
SEATAC, Wash. The Christmas trees are going back up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Port of Seattle officials had ordered the trees taken down over the weekend after a local rabbi threatened a lawsuit if a menorah wasn't also displayed at the airport.
Airport officials say they took that action out of concern that if they allowed the addition of a menorah, they would also have to display symbols of other religions and cultures, which was not something airport workers had time for during the busiest travel season of the year.
Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky says he never asked that the trees be taken down, and the threat of a lawsuit was withdrawn.
With the threat of the lawsuit gone, airport spokesman Bob Parker says all 14 trees will go back up -- hopefully by tomorrow morning.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You said it in a more colorful way than I did. "they shone a light on this sue-happy rabbi and now we get to watch him backpedal feverishly." For the greater part of my life, Hanukkah celebrations were held privately while most Christians displayed lighted candles and wreaths in their windows to proclaim their joy of the birth of Jesus. Hanukkah is a minor Jewish holyday.
You called this arrogant attempt for what it is...nothing more than politically correct crap, and I'm glad it was thrown right back in his face.
Dazzling posts!
Love the cartoon! She has a point.
I suggest you choose your words more carefully. Disagreeing with or objecting to someone's action or opinion does not equate with calling them a demon. In other words, they are NOT being demonized.
As to a right to get what the other guys get, "socialism" leaped into my mind. We live in a capitalistic society (and I hope we hold onto it). Do you believe that a high school graduate should expect to earn the same salary as an electrical engineer?
If I receive gifts on my birthday, does someone born on a different day have the right to get gifts, also?
I don't understand what you mean.
In regard to sabramerican's complaint that his post was removed, I never saw the post. You say it was vile and disgusting. While I was willing to give him/her the benefit of the doubt, I accept your opinion. You obviously read it.
Actually, you are right! In all my twelve years of Catholic schooling, I was never told that these trees represented religion.
In Christian homes, however, they usually stand out as the stars among all other decorations at Christmas time. Who, other than Christians, put up a Christmas tree in their homes?
And yet, it has no religious signifance.
I don't know about other Christians but I was not happy the Christmas trees were removed because I know they have no religious significance.
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I don't get it. Why would you be upset at the removal of non-religious greenery?
Do you habitually get upset when the grass is cut, bagged, and disposed of?
Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky says he never asked that the trees be taken down, and the threat of a lawsuit was withdrawn.
With the threat of the lawsuit gone, airport spokesman Bob Parker says all 14 trees will go back up -- hopefully by tomorrow morning.
If you do that, then you won't be invited to the Marriage party of the JEW, Jesus.
You know about Him, don't you?
He said that HE was the ONLY way to the Father - keeping the LAW wouldn't count.
(That Saul/Paul fellow He talked to on the road to Damascus expounded on this quite a bit in a popular Book - the One that is the top seller EVERY YEAR.)
I don't get it. Why would you be upset at the removal of non-religious greenery? Do you habitually get upset when the grass is cut, bagged, and disposed of? ...... gogogodzilla
Is turkey at Thanksgiving something special or merely "poultry"?
Is giving a young child his first dreidel at Hannukah something special or merely giving a "toy"?
Are Fourth of July fireworks something special or merely "entertainment"?
When a Jewish man was a child and was sick and his Jewish grandmother made him chicken soup, was that something special or does he merely remember that his grandmother sent him "food"?
What Christmas trees and all those other things have in common is that, whether or not they are religious, that are deeply held:
TRADITION!!!!
When you take away a Christmas tree from a 45 year old man that has not stepped foot inside a church ever since his Aunt Betty's funeral service ten years ago, you are going to get an extremely hostile reaction, not because you are taking away a religious symbol, but because you are taking away the America of his childhood.
As I noted in Post 172, the way I interpret the First Amendment, the Free Exercise Clause does allow the public display of overtly religious symbols such as a Nativity, a Menorah or a Koran as long as no religion is specifically prohibited. Once the Courts take it upon themselves to declare that a Menorah is "secular" and allowed but a Creche is "religious" and needs to be excluded, that crosses the line into arbitrary judicial tyranny that the Founding Fathers would be appalled at.
Instead of fighting each other, we should be fighting the judicial tyranny that has completely ignored the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and has created a situation where the words "Menorah" and "Nativity Scene" and "Airport" cannot be mentioned in the same sentence without including the words "Lawyers" and "Lawsuits".
Legal precedent is not engraved in stone. If the Courts are capable of discovering penumbras in the Constitution to allow abortion, given enough legal challenges to past legal rulings that has made Secularism the established state religion, the Courts may some day rediscover the Free Exercise Clause that is right there in the Constitution in black and white.
When that day comes, we can see Menorahs and Nativity Scenes and Korans all at the same public airports as the Founding Fathers intended instead of having Courts fan the flames of religious intolerance.
Party pooper! I'm gonna get the Star of David with the cross in it! That was My First Choice! :)
American in Israel...I've missed talking to you. I hope all's well...
You have no argument from me.
Decorated Christmas trees are a tradition with many families. There was no sense used in removing a non-religious tradition under the guise that it was religious.
Your preference for non religious displays, like Holiday Trees, with no religious overtones, neither Christian nor Jewish nor anything else is noted. Sea-Tac agrees with you. Religion has no place in the Holiday Season
For an example of the placement of creches along with Menorahs, I realize you're opposed, look to the same group FR's Jew obsessives have been bashing the last few days.
Hanukkah Menorahs Light Path for Nativity Displays-Christian Activists Cite Campaign as Precedent
Start with Menorahs, end up with Nativity Displays. Awful what's happening to the country.
Probably not, he's a Jew after all.
But no, it wouldn't matter, furriners get to sue here anyway.
And the airport is public. That's why they have non-religious Holiday Trees. The private vendors at the airport get to put up Christmas Trees. They could even put up Menorahs or Crescents.
You should be more respectful. After all a Rabbi requested a Menorah be placed in an airport, threatened to sue, and that's a reflection on all Jews.
Defining the group by the individual, classic bigotry. In this case a nice individual too.
Last week a prominent Christian and Former President releast a marginally libelous book.
This week a Holocaust Denial conferance in Tehran was attended by several lunatic Jews, but keynoted by a prominenant Christian academic, Dr. David Duke, who loudly proclaims a "Christian" message. With him, luminaries like Robert Faurisson of France and Michele Renouf of Britain. They ain't Muslim.
By the standards expressed by a handful on these threads, I should conclude Christians are rabid Jew Haters.
It's just the way things are.
Worse yet, they might have included a Christian symbol. A Creche or something. Maybe even a Christmas Tree. These were Holiday Trees, representative of ALL faiths. The media pulled a Christmas tree shuffle on this one.
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