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It just isn’t so cut and dried. We all wear many hats. I don’t stop being individual “me” just because I take a government position as a public school teacher. I am responsible for knowing school regulations and laws and enforcing them and the school administration on all levels is responsible for seeing that I do.
Are you a Doper or a father? 
My husband and I were married on New Year’s Day – also on a pier over a lake.
Cool! 
I always knew we were kindred spirits.
Yes, of course I argue that.
Which is why teachers can’t proselytze as part of their official duties, and soldiers can’t torture as part of theirs. Both these things are wrong, and should be stopped and those responsible punished. So is a government official imposing ridiculous PC/BS on the Easter Bunny.
Abusus non tollit usum.
Regards,
Shodan
When I was a high-school student, I started a club called (get ready for some supremo adolescent pretentiousness) the Aspirants to the Ancient Learning. It was basically a neopagan group: I figured our school had a chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, so why not a place for the Wiccans and occultists to hang out?
The administration was cool about it: I filed my group charter (complete with official jobs like “Raven” and “Weaver”–toldja it was pretentious), they approved it, and our group meetings started appearing on the morning announcement sheets passed out to each home room teacher.
Mrs. Grissom was a hard-core fundamentalist Christian, and kinda of crazy (she’d taped two rulers together so that she could have a cross in her classroom). According to friends in her homeroom, she specifically refused to read our announcement; I believe she told others she was going to pray for us.
Her actions violated, in a trivial, insignificant way, my freedom of religion. However, I think I’d be incorrect if I claimed that the school violated my freedom of religion: the administration had done everything they were supposed to do, and I never bothered to file a complaint with them about her activities (because, as I said, it was trivial, more funny than anything else).
In this case, it may be that the city is acting improperly. But until the bunny-displayer has appealed the HR guy’s decision, I don’t feel we can say that the city has acted improperly.
On another note, because I believe that there’s nothing religious involved in a display of bunnies, I have trouble seeing any way in which the HR guy’s decision would constitute religious discrimination. He’s acting foolishly, but it’s foolish precisely because he’s seeing religion where none exists.
Daniel
The bunny-displayer has said that she doesn’t want to get involved in a controversy of this sort.
But it does not seem to me that we cannot say that the city has acted improperly until someone appeals. It’s clear that this is a ridiculously over-the-top display of PC gone berserk. We don’t need to go to the courts to see that.
Regards,
Shodan
Watch The Wicker Man some time. Gotta watch out for them pagans.
I think you misunderstand. I agree that it’s a case of PC gone berserk. I disagree that we can blame City Council for it except through the same indirect channels that would lead to my blaming my high school principal for fundamentalist Christianity gone berserk.
Daniel
I have on my desk at this very moment a mailer my company’s preparing for a local Christian church. On the front of it, it has a picture of a rather cute, little, white bunny with the caption, “Has the true meaning of Easter gotten a little fuzzy?” It seems to me that if Christians are questioning the significance of bunny rabbits when it comes to Easter (and rightly so, in my opinion), we can hardly complain about someone attempting to endorse Easter by displaying rabbits.
I, for one, don’t want the government endorsing my religion. Besides, this year Easter is rather neatly bracketed by the day taxes are usually due, and the day they’re to be mailed by this year. I’d say this will do far more to interfere with Easter than any presence or absence of pagan symbols that we’ve so neatly co-opted.
CJ
Note to self: get moving on taxes – that sort of penitential activity is far to solemn for the joy of Easter Sunday!
Sorry for the slight hijack, but Purim is celebrated in an almost exclusively religious fashion? Where, pray tell? There’s not even anything religious about Purim – there were no acts of G-d, no divine miracles, nothing. Sure, the story is told in the Bible, but in the only book that doesn’t even mention G-d. Beyond that, it doesn’t even come close to being “religiously” celebrated. In fact, Purim is one of the most fun holidays in Judaism, where everyone dresses up like kings and queens and dances around with noise-makers, booing and hissing at the mention of Haman and eating hammantaschen (Haman’s hats). One of the primary requirements of the celebration is to get so bleedin’ drunk that you can’t tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai.” It’s often referred to as the Jewish Mardi Gras. /end hijack.
In my ignorant and overconfident imagination, obviously. My apologies: I apparently have it confused with another Jewish holiday, probably Yom Kippur. Sorry about that!
Daniel
Let us atheists put up a huge exclamation mark and I say we run with this.
Can someone link to a more current story on this hoo-raw? The link in the OP does not strongly support certain of Shodan’s assertions, such as: Human Rights Director ordered the display removed; Human Rights Director’s actions were taken acting in his official capacity; Human Rights Director refused permission for the display to be there.
From the link in the OP, it could just as easily be, an ad hoc display, placed by the City Council Secretary, without seeking authorization, with the Human Rights director merely being the first person to realize that an unauthorized display had been erected, and making a request that it be removed.
Hey, no apologies necessary. Sorry if my reply seemed a little terse – I’d had more composed and then decided against throwing my 2¢ into the debate so I deleted everything after the Purim explanation and meant to close with something a little gentler.
Shalom!
;j
Not at all! It was a goofy mistake on my part: I think I saw some Purim flyers up on campus recently and had a brain fart. Your correction is much appreciated.
Daniel
Is the erecting of the display, by the council secretary, a government action? If so then it becomes a judgement call if this display constitutes an improper endorsement of religious views. The person charged with deciding what is proper and improper in this sphere is the City Human Rights Manager. This individual made their decision. The next level of authority is the city council and they can make their decision or not as they see fit.
Exactly what is disturbing about this? The city council placed the authority to determine what is and is not an endorsement or expression of religion in the hands of the Human Rights Manager. The secretary set up something which, in the judgement of the HR manager, created a situation which could offend a protected class(non-Christians) and which, because actions of government employees constitute government actions, could be considered government offending a protected class. The HR manager took action. You disagree as to the finding of fact the HR manager made about the potential offensiveness of the display. That’s fine and good, but the authority to make that call was vested in the HR manager’s office, not in random people on the Internet. The people who have the authority to reverse the HR manager’s call are aware of the situation as, most likely, are their constituents. If there was ever a time to just let the system work, this would probably be it.
Enjoy,
Steven
On further thought, I think I agree with LHOD. I also explain Christmas to my children as “pseudo-secular” holidays. It’s a religious holiday AND a secular holiday - as if there were two holidays that occur on the same day. We still observe “Christmas dinner” and give and get “Christmas gifts”, but without any reference or thought for Christ’s birth. I suppose the Easter Bunny could be construed as a non-religious expression of a pseudo-secular holiday. I hadn’t previously considered a secular Easter, but I guess lots of people have easter egg hunts or give Easter baskets and aren’t thinking about Christ.
Fair 'nough. I just can’t seem to get all blistering ragey about it, though.
I was listening to some talk about this on local radio today and I think it’s been getting misreported. From what I heard, the HR guy only asked that they remove the words “Happy Easter,” not the actual bunny or any of the rest of the display. I wasn’t really paying that close attention so I’m not sure how they got from taking down one sign to removing the whole display, Maybe somebody misunderstood an order and took down the whole display or something, but the HR guy’s getting kind of snowballed. Not that some Christians aren’t going to leap at the opportunity to nail themselves to a cross over it.
Incidentally, can we please have a moratorium on the utterly useless apellation, “PC?” It means nothing, it describes nothing, it signifies nothing. It’s just an all purpose conservative buzzword for “stuff I don’t like.”
This bit from the AP news coverage just floored me:
Shodan, please understand. The folks who do silly stuff like this probably aren’t declaring “war on Christmas” or “war on Easter.” More likely than not, they just don’t understand the law or the fine line and they go overboard. It’s easy to do. Everyone has a slightly different interpretation on what is appropriate.
I tend to find bunnies and colored eggs a little unbusiness like. And the “Happy Easter” sign I wouldn’t have done. Just vases of spring flowers – branches of forsythia, dogwood and pussywillow maybe. If anyone complained, I would turn the swans loose on them.
My point is that the director of human rights ought to understand the law. And this is not a particularly fine line to anyone with common sense, IMO. But the more PC, the less common sense, AFAICT.
I think you need some kind of reasonable standard. If the human rights director simply declared that use of the phrase “under God” is not an endorsement of religion, then would you consider the matter closed?
Again, I would ask if lawsuits or letters threatening lawsuits from the ACLU should also be dismissed as irrelevant.
Suppose some town wanted to put up a religious display on public property. Their city council decided that this was appropriate. The ACLU objects. Would you agree that the town had vested the authority to determine what was and was not an expression or endorsement of religon into its council, and therefore anyone who objected should simply shut up?
The City Council, perhaps not. The city itself, acting thru its agents, yes. And for the same indirect reasons you mention.
Although after a point, if the responsible authorities know about something and take no action, they begin to share in the responsibility. If the high school principal knew your teacher was actively proselytizing and did nothing about it, or tacitly endorsed it, it becomes (in my view) even more of an establishment of religion.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke, I think.
One might add in this somewhat minor example, for the triumph of completely stupid PC as well.
Regards,
Shodan