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Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky says he never asked that the trees be taken down, and the threat of a lawsuit was withdrawn.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 ...
Thanks ntnychik!
Jonah 2
Jonah's Prayer
1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.
2 He said: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. 3 You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. 4 I said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.'
5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.
8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation [Yeshua] comes from the LORD [YHVH]."
10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Worthless idols… See: Jeremiah 10
Anyone over the (intellectual) age of 12 knows that shepherds do not watch over their flocks during winter. Crucifixion on Passover, resurrection on First Fruits (notice a pattern?), birth during Tabernacles (late summer, shepherds in the fields, pilgrimage Festival = no room at the inn) and back up nine months to the conception and you fall into Chanukah.
Happy Chanukah!
There is nothing preventing that now, other than access to multiple religions with holidays during the holiday season.
This entire episode was misrepresented by the media.
There was nothing at Sea-Tac expressive of Christianity. Though the media called the Christmas Trees, every statement from Sea-Tac carefully and correctly referred to them as Holiday Trees. With no specific religious significance, rather representing all religions in some bizarre way. Christianity wasn't represented at Sea-Tac at all.
Along comes the Rabbi, misinterprets the Holiday Tree as a Christmas Tree, and ruins the party by requesting a Menorah. Which is required under the law.
Of course Sea-Tac is going to deny him. Put up a Menorah, they'll have to allow a Christian display. Horrors, a creche, worse yet someone might hang a cross on the now Christmas, not Holiday, Tree.
It's the height of absurdity. It's a holiday season, as the courts recognize, because multiple religious holidays fall in December, Sea-Tac want's to bar all religious displays, and everyone is up in arms because they think those were Christmas Trees.
I think there's a place for public displays, obviously they should be allowed, but in some ways I think it would be better if they were left to homes and religious institutions. Perhaps some of the meaning would be retained. The last Menorah I saw, it's not Hanukah yet, was at O'Hare airport. A cute picture pasted above a menu picture of a breakfast sandwich with ham and cheese. Could have done without that, my home and synagogue would be enough for me.
Hanukkah Menorahs Light Path for Nativity Displays-Christian Activists Cite Campaign as Precedent
The Constitution does not allow the public square property to be used to pick religious favorites, nor should it. One can argue if the tree was a "holiday tree" or "Xmas tree," and that is where the litigation would have gone if it ensued. It has nothing to do with socialism. Sure it would be nice if folks just chilled out, but traducing someone for exercising their legal right of redress in the courts is wrong - period. In fact, it is un-American in my eyes.
But where does one go to find women who will accept being bound up and tortured?
Semper Fi
IMO, he has showed himself to be contentious in this matter.
Where was he for the last ten or so years? And did it ever occur to him to meet with the Seattle Port Authority during the year to discuss the issue? No. He waited til the traditional display was erected. One could question the purpose of his timing.
What annoys me, and probably most Christians, is the unrelenting drive to belittle our belief system. This is just the latest example, because this is the season when Christians, for ages, celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Hanukkah begins Dec. 15 this year and lasts eight days. It is a minor Jewish celebration. Kwaanza is a made-up "religion", and frankly I'm in no frame of mind to give a nickel's worth of attention to Ramadan or anything else Muslims celebrate.
Because the founding fathers embedded in the Constitution the idea that the public square property should not favor one religion over another, and that includes airport public property. It is not about attacking one's belief system, it is about neutrality as to such matters. In our pluralistic and litigious society, this stricture is now being policed more strictly in more places. If it were not this particular rabbi wanting his share of the action, it would in time be someone else. And pursuing one's Constitutional rights, is not wrong, it is a right. One can criticize the judgment, but in the end, the Constitution says what it says, as it has been interpreted.
I think the rabbi say the tree while passing through the airport, when the thought occurred to him, that Jews should have a symbol that had meaning to them included. I don't think this was planned out months before as some legal wait and pounce strategy. The guy just reacted to his impulse. I have been in GOP affiliated group political meetings when there was a prayer offered at some point that invoked Jesus Christ as our savior. It made this near atheist secular cultural WASP uncomfortable. It was not inclusive. Did I speak up? No. But I winced. It was a tin ear thing I thought at the time. Can you relate to that at all?
By the way, as a codicil, I love holiday trees, xmas trees, whatever. They remind me of my feckless youth, and the good times I had, and the goodies under it. They don't make me wince at all. It is a part of my culture! But not some others, and I understand that.
GOD BLESS ALL OF HIS CHILDREN!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
We'll start by disregarding advice from non-Christians.
Our country is getting more and more divisive and western civilization will be a thing of the past.
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