The secular sanitization of Christmas

Great Debates
1

Growing up in my small hometown, every Christmas, our local park downtown would put up a nativity scene, with large, ceramic shepherds, farm animals, etc. Like the decorated streetlights and lighted-up houses, this just came to say “it’s Christmastime” for me and, I’m sure, many others.

After decades of doing so, the tradition was stopped, probably about 10 years ago now. No one in the community had complained. It was scrapped at the recommendation of the Michigan Municipal League, which represents the city. The League’s attorneys, having seen lawsuits in other parts of the country over such nativity scenes, said it was a liability.

Fast-forward to now. As read here:

(OK, everybody, silently sing the words to “Jingle Bells” in your head, and figure out what part would be objectionable to non-Christians.)

The pendulum has, clearly, swung too far.

The United States of America is a nation based on freedom. But it is also a nation based on Judeo-Christian faith and belief.

Muslims, Athiests, Satanists, Pagans, and everyone else has a right not to agree with or believe in Christmas and Hannukah. They should not, however, have the right to whitewash the holiday away on a public level.

Our Founding Fathers were clear that they didn’t want the government sanctioning a particular religion. Show me, however, where they wanted to quash the expression of or celebration of Judeo-Christian religious practices in general?

A recent Gallup poll shows about 85 percent of Americans say they are Christians. That number is down from 92 percent in the 1950s. Seventy percent of Americans say they belong to a church or synagogue; and 60 percent say they’ve attended a religious service within the past month, the poll indicates.

How is the celebration of Christmas and Hannukah, in a very general way, in communities in a country with a Judeo-Christian heritage, offensive to non-believers? Don’t believe! Don’t practice! But acknowledge that more than eight out of ten of your neighbors do believe, and want to celebrate a holiday that is central to their faith.

You may say, “Why should my tax dollars go to something I oppose?” Since when doesn’t that happen?

If my community wants to put up a bandshell in the local park to have performances, the fact that I may be offended by barbershop quartets and jazz ensembles doesn’t matter - unless I can build some groundswell of support that overwhelms those who favors these activities.

Why is it different when it comes to Christmas, when religion is interjected?

We’re not talking about specificity that begins to favor one religious interpretation of the holiday over another. We’re talking extremely general celebration here. We’re talking Christmas trees and “Jingle Bells.”

Non-believers, I wanna hear from you. Do the words “Merry Christmas” disgust you (see the item from a letter-writer at the bottom of the first link in this OP)? Do you feel the offense taken by the minority should overwhelm the desires of more than eight out of ten people?

2

We already did the annual secular Christmas thread this year, Milo. But anyone who wants a rerun is welcome to play!

3

Secular Christmas threads don’t count if they are started before Thanksgiving. :wink:

4

I guess maybe if the First Amendment said: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of barbershop quartets” you might have a case. Do you see the difference?

5

Where, in my OP, did I talk about Congress enacting or needing to enact any laws?

Read that First Amendment a little closer there, Necros.

To me, that’s saying Congress won’t make laws establishing a government-sanctioned religion, and everyone has the freedom to express their religious beliefs without persecution.

So a Satanist is free to perform his or her rituals, so long as they don’t break any other laws. But the city doesn’t have to let them do so in the park. If, however, eight or nine out of 10 people in your community are Satanists, maybe the city council would see differently.

6

Yeah well, we have this little thing called Amendment 14. Section 1, in particular. Take a look at it.

MR

7

OK, Maeglin, I’ve taken a look at it.

What’s your point?

Haven’t we already established that everyone has equal protection under the law to express any religion they please, or no religion at all?

Where have I said otherwise?

Whose privileges or immunities are abridged by Christmas trees, nativity scenes and the words “Merry Christmas?” Who is having their “life, liberty and property deprived?”

Do tell.

8

If you would like to put up Christmas decorations on your private property, then you may do so with impunity. There is no law on the books which can restrict your private observance of religion.

Here’s my line. If you are going to place the trappings of religion on public property, you must do so for all religions, provided that the adherents care. This is in many ways objectionable. It trivializes the religions nature of the objects, and it makes for a public eyesore. So unless a municipality is willing to tolerate an aesthetic eyesore, it ought to order that the trappings of religion, regardless of the nature of the festive season, should be removed.

A Christian might think this is cutting off the nose despite the face. As a Jew, for me this is relief. The law is the law.

9

Under the 14th Amendment, the 1st Amendment applies to the states. Therefore, not only Congress, but state and local governments are forbidden from committing acts advocating for a particular religion.

So you say. But John Adams, who, having been there would know better, disagrees with you. In a treaty he signed with the Barbary states in 1803 (gotta check that), it states that the U.S. is NOT founded on Christian religious beliefs.

It really comes down to a place, and manner for everything. This country has determined that public lands and public funds are not the appropriate place or manner for expressions of religious belief. No insult is intended to those beliefs.
On a personal note, what’s the beef? Are the Christians complaining about this so insecure in their beliefs that they need a public reminder on government property of them? For that matter, are they so cheap that they don’t want to pay for their own decorations? Your argument can be culled down to as follows:
“Listen, I want my town to spend its own money celebrating my religious beliefs. It’s OK, because the majority of Americans have the same beliefs.”

I will agree with you about “Jingle Bells” though. I can’t think of a more inoffensive song (well, mebbe “Happy Birthday”)

Sua

10

Note the last couple of words you post, Milo.

Have you forgotten that “Everything not compulsory is forbidden”? Doubleplusungood. We shall have to send you for Reorientation! :eek:

Now, consider that we 11,000+ people on SDMB comprise a small city. However, the tax base is a bit strange. The Chicago Reader, the city’s newspaper of record, pays the majority of the taxes. Joel Mullaney, having given all his worldly goods to the poor, can claim the “nun’s exemption” from taxes. Nearly everyone else has invested all their money through Manhattan in tax-exempt bonds and pay no taxes. Except for three of us: you, me, and David B.

David’s tax money is being used to erect those religious symbols on the public park (along with yours, mine, and the Reader’s). He is being “deprived of property” (that share of the cost of erecting them which may be allocated to his taxes) for an activity not sanctioned by “due process of law” (an unconstitutional enactment is legally not “due process”).

It is his right not to have to pay for someone else’s religious celebration. And rights are not determined by majority vote; they are inherent in the individual. If every other member of the SDMB than David were a fundamentalist Christian, he still retains that right.

Now, if the local Council of Churches offers to buy and erect a nativity scene, the Lions to provide and decorate a tree, and so on, no problem exists. Except that it is on public land, requiring that a policy be put in place or tacitly assumed on what religious usage may be conducted on public property. And in the absence of a specific non-favoritist policy being adopted, any use of public land for peaceful use will be assumed to be valid. Which means that the local pagan coven may have a celebration there next Beltaine. If you’re OK on that, then there’s no problem with the (privately funded) nativity scene either. David’s right not to endorse Christmas does not extend to his having the right to veto others’ celebration of it; he cannot demand that you remove your “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season” sign from your front yard, even though he sees it every time he looks out his window at your house. And he cannot restrict you, or the Council of Churches, from using public land in a manner that does not specifically endorse a particular religion, or religion in general. Although he may use the privilege to put up a sign honoring National Skeptics Day (there’s got to be one).

11

I don’t believe it. Gotta cite?
:smiley:

12

National Skeptics Day is October 13th.

13

As usual, Polycarp has said it much better than I could. In a nutshell, I do not want my money being used to support your, or any other, faith. As an extension of that, I do not want public places that are supported by my money being used to support your, or any other, faith.

However, you’re dead correct. The attempt to kill “Jingle Bells” was misguided. And I have no problems with Christmas trees on public property, provided they contain no religious images.

Am I disgusted by “Merry Christmas?” No. But I do not agree with a religious tyranny of the majority either.

14

Sure, that’s reasonable (substituting “government” for “Congress,” for 14th reasons already mentioned). But then you go and say something like this:

This is what I don’t get. Do you really, honestly not see anything wrong with abridging fundamental, natural, Constitutionally-protected rights just because 80 percent of people think it’s OK?

15

No, you mustn’t. You are absolutely wrong here.

And I’m still waiting to see a law that says a community can’t put up generalized words and items celebrating the Judeo-Christian holidays in a non-specific way.

**

I agree the U.S. Constitution applies to the states. I still don’t see where the First Amendment would prevent a community from doing what I’ve described above, however.

The government isn’t establishing a particular religion (the Constitution says nothing of “advocating.” It says “establishment.”); 8 to 9 out of 10 people have already done the establishing. And they want their community to reflect the holidays. How does their desire cause problems for the small minority?

Some other Founding Fathers apparently disagreed with Mr. Adams, then:

“Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birth-day of the Saviour.” – John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport, at Their Request, on the Sixty-first Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1837 (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), p. 5.

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were…the general principles of Christianity.” - John Quincy Adams, in letter written to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.

“The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His Apostles… This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.” Noah Webster, from History of the United States(New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832)

**

Not only is this not true; I’d imagine the vast majority of Americans are offended by those who want to do away with public Christmas trees and the words “Merry Christmas” and/or “Happy Hannukah” in public places.

No; my argument can be culled down to, “My town spends a little money celebrating in a very general sense a time of year that is festive and important to the vast majority of those who live here. It does so in a way that breaks no laws, and in a manner similar to how it typically spends money to make the majority of its citizens happy.”

Let’s say I hate America and all it stands for. I no longer want to see American flags, Uncle Sams, or red white and blue displayed on Independence Day.

Or, I hate the military and am ashamed of America’s war-mongering ways. I no longer want to see the trappings of celebrations of Memorial or Veteran’s days.

Just about everybody, myself included, would find the above two scenarios ludicrous. But interject a little bit of the dreaded “R-word” into the picture, and then it’s fine. Because some, like those who’ve posted here, misinterpret what is written in the Constitution’s 1st and 14th amendments.

16

Sua, you stated: “This country has determined that public lands and public funds are not the appropriate place or manner for expressions of religious belief.” Sua, you’re wrong again.

“This country” has made no such determination. Certain activist elements of the Judiciary Branch have made that determination, without the question ever being referred to the ‘primitive’ device of a public general vote.

Don’t you think that pursuing a single statement made by a single person (John Adams) with regard to a single treaty that somehow denies that the U.S. was founded on Christian principles is a bit lame? Are you not paying attention? The most cursory readings of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence leave NO doubt that Christian principles are the foundation upon which the founding fathers relied in their work.

For the record, I’m NOT a rabid “born-again” Christian with an “ultra-conservative” ax to grind. I’m just a regular guy who can’t figure out how some folks can be so blind to the absolute factual basis of our history. I’m not saying that a Christian heritage is right or wrong for our nation. I just want to point out that that heritage is FACT.

17

[hijack]

I’ve cut this out and put it in a clipboard. I’m gonna paste it in gun control threads whenever anyone says that my insistence on possessing weapons to oppose future government tyranny is ridiculous.

Thanks for providing that particular bit of tyranny just now.

[/hijack]

18

I’m going to have to ask you to be painfully specific as to where the Constitution coincides at all with Christian principles. I can think, off the very top of my head, of several places where the Bill of Rights directly conflicts with the Ten Commandments.

19

You are welcome to consider a mountain of American jurisprudence “misinterpretation.” You are not likely to win many friends that way.

20

I don’t know about that. Well, maybe, but there’s a part where a gentleman in a one horse open sleigh laughs at a man who fell down in the snow.