Though a Fort Collins City Council vote last week ended a months-long discussion regarding holiday decorations on city property, one councilman said the initial question of menorah placement still has not been answered.
Councilman Wade Troxell circulated an e-mail to other council members and staff saying the city had not satisfied the need for an inclusionary city square open for free religious expression and that it should scrap parts of the plan the council adopted 6-1.
Troxell said the council needed to work with Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik — whose denied request to place a menorah marking Hanukkah on city property two years ago sparked the debate — to integrate a menorah with the traditional Christmas display.
Troxell cast the lone dissenting vote Nov. 20 to the proposal that maintained traditional, secular Christmas symbols such as decorated trees and colored lights on city buildings. It also created a display for next year on the Fort Collins Museum property that could have religious symbols such as the menorah.
"The museum display isn't inclusionary at all. It's a perversion of inclusion," he said. "It will be developed by city workers, which isn't an expression of faith. It's an interpretation."
As with any bureaucratic/governmental solution, the results are often incomplete, inadequate, and dissatisfying. The requested menorah that sparked this unnecessary controversy is still at issue--and was the primary reason for this councilman's no vote.
Previous coverage of the Fort Collins holiday display "task force" debacle here.
Audio of the "holiday display task force presentation", Mayor Doug Hutchinson's ground rules and clarifications, and citizen comments:
An immigrant from the UK describes the nefarious encroachment of socialism/multiculturalism and explains that the "celebration of diversity" really means more restrictions and less inclusiveness:
Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik explains his original request to display a Menorah that touched off the controversy, first when his request was denied twice, and then with the formation of the "holiday task force":
Still legal in Fort Collins--at least this year
Citizens of Fort Collins prepare to weigh in on the "holiday task force" recommendations
All holidays are welcomed and celebrated in Fort Collins. City Council voted, 6-1, to adopt a Holiday Display Policy that honors current Christmas traditions and adds a new multicultural display at the Fort Collins Museum.
Council chose to adopt a hybrid plan which incorporates elements of both the existing Holiday Display Policy and a portion of the Holiday Display Task Force recommendations.
Consistent with existing policy, interior and exterior of City buildings may include traditional displays of trees, adorned greenery, wreaths, and other secular symbols or messages. Both white and colored lights are acceptable.
Based on recommendations from the Holiday Display Task Force, a multi-cultural educational exhibit will be placed on the grounds of the Fort Collins Museum. Both secular and religious celebrations and traditions will be included.
This decision, however, does not remove the responsibility the City Council bears for having put itself in such an awkward, attention gathering situation. It failed for two years to approve a request to add a Menorah, at no cost, to its existing display. It also punted the political football created by the controversy by overreacting and appointing a bureaucratic nightmare of a task force whose composition--widely derided by the citizens of Fort Collins--seemed to be predisposed to providing a multicultural mess of a recommendation that became media fodder overnight and drew even more negative publicity for the city.
The hybrid option did not please some task force members including, unsurprisingly, the lone ACLU member:
Some members of the citizen Holiday Display Task Force committee said Monday they are unhappy with changes city staff made to a holiday display policy coming before the City Council for a vote Tuesday night.
The task force, which met weekly for more than two months, made recommendations to ban colored lights and wreaths from the exterior of city buildings but to allow building managers' discretion in determining what adorns building interiors - including flexibility for religious displays.
The "hybrid policy," mashed together with parts of the task force recommendation and input from individual council members and the public, would allow for colored lights and Christmas tree displays on city building exteriors, including Oak Street Plaza, but limits what can be placed inside city buildings to items secular in nature unless part of an educational piece of artwork.
"My primary concern is that the (hybrid) recommendation includes aspects that were neither in the original policy nor the task force recommendation," task force spokesman Seth Anthony said. "I am concerned that some of the things were not thought all the way through and carefully (vetted) like the task force recommendations were."
City manager Darin Atteberry disagreed, saying the city has a long-standing policy and tradition of using citizen group input along with other factors when preparing policy for council debate and vote.
"That is why they are called advisory groups," Atteberry said, adding these types of decisions are always left to the city's elected officials.
Fort Collins Holiday Display Flap Set For Vote; Mayor Opposes Recommendation, Sheriff Plans Christmas Tree Protest
"Fort Collins is becoming more like the imbecilic borough of Boulder than many would like to admit, where social agendas substitute for common sense"--Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden
Council member Diggs Brown said he agrees with the mayor, says he'll vote against the task force recommendation because he doesn't want to be the "grinch" that ruins Christmas for Fort Collins' children (video):
"I will ask City Council to reject any recommendations that diminish Christmas in Fort Collins, especially our traditional display of Christmas trees, colored lights and other traditional secular symbols," Mayor Doug Hutchinson wrote in an opinion piece in Wednesday's The Coloradoan.
Decrying people he says are taking the "Christ out of Christmas," Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden is inviting the public to help decorate a Christmas tree on his office lawn, and seeking donations to ensure no tax dollars are spent on it.
"Most of the members of the Larimer County Sheriff's Office are Christians and celebrate Christmas. We pray for the continued safety of our brothers and sisters in blue, and recognize that the laws we are sworn to uphold have their very foundation in the laws laid down by God through Moses," Alderden said in his Bull's-eye newsletter. "Our criminal codes are based on Judaic Christian doctrine. To deny that by restricting symbols of Christian faith on public property is beyond the pale."
Alderden devoted his most recent newsletter to the ongoing controversy over the city's holiday light display task force's recommendation that religious symbols be limited in public places. The City Council will discuss the recommendations at Tuesday's meeting.
Because the sheriff's tree will be on county-owned property, it's not subject to the task force's recommendations. . . . "There's such a thing as religious tolerance, but you can be tolerant without excluding the majority, and that seems to be the road we're heading down," Alderden said. "We respect people of other faiths and religions. We respect other people's right to have their opinions, but don't ask Christians to hide their faith."
For moonbats, tolerance swings only in one direction. Everyone must accommodate the minority, while the majority must remain silent and traditions are removed to placate the delicate sensibilities of the "offended"--whether real or imagined. This is the ultimate result of nanny-statism and multi-culturalism, and RMN editor Vincent Carroll details what awaits down the slippery slope:
We used to debate whether religious symbols were appropriate — or even legal — on public property at Christmas time. Now we apparently must debate whether anything that makes someone think of Christmas should be displayed.
A city appointed task force in Fort Collins has concluded that the answer is no. Even objects that have no more religious significance than a fat elf with a long white beard might jeopardize the civic goal of ensuring that all citizens “feel valued, welcomed and included.” As a result, for example, the task force would allow no colored lights on city buildings or in common areas inside. And no ornaments. It would even mandate that any “garlands of greenery” be “unadorned.”
Mustn’t let a ribbon give the public the wrong idea.
Apparently the worry is that someone who doesn’t celebrate Dec. 25 might notice a red ribbon and think, “Aha! They’re pushing Christmas.” The next thing you know, the poor fellow will be seeking advice from a therapist on how to cope. What kind of “inclusive” city would willingly subject its citizens to such traumatic ordeals? Better to limit displays to white lights, icicles, snowflakes, snowmen, penguins, polar bears, and skis (all declared harmless by the task force) rather than flirt with the harrowing possibility that a string of colored lights might trigger a bout of depression in a sensitive passerby. . . . Officials who decide to scrub one holiday from the calendar in the name of a uniting “all city residents and visitors in the spirit of community celebration” may soon discover their work is more complicated than they thought.
"On the display you'll see symbols and recognition and descriptions of all the various traditions that are celebrated here in Fort Collins," said Seth Anthony, a spokesperson for the task force, which included representatives from a variety of secular and religious groups.
What appears to be attracting controversy is another recommendation that would not allow colored lights and other symbols associated with Christmas in other outside public areas.
"The council's intent was to be positive, be expansive, to be more inclusive. I'm not sure why we would want to restrict any aspect of what has been years and years of traditional holiday displays," said Fort Collins Mayor Doug Hutchinson, who has received angry calls from many people, some of whom claim the city is stealing Christmas.
However, those with the task force say its proposal is appropriate.
"We have to be careful that the displays that we have not endorse any particular religion. Putting things in a multicultural context, or an educational context really helps us be very safely on the good side of the First Amendment," said Anthony, who is an ACLU member.
That said, Anthony adds Christmas would not be absent from Fort Collins if the recommendations were to pass. He says they would not prohibit Christmas trees or decorations inside public buildings and businesses would still throw up all sorts of Christmas displays.
I'm sure they'll take care of those glaring omissions next year.
Though the recommendation's language does not address Christmas trees by name, the consensus among task force members was that Christmas trees would not fall within its recommendations, said Seth Anthony, spokesman for the task force.
"Some symbols, even though the Supreme Court has declared that in many contexts they are secular symbols, often still send a message to some members of the community that they and their traditions are not values and not wanted. We don't want to send that message," Anthony said.
But the Fort Collins museum's display of white lights in trees on its grounds - including an evergreen tree lighted as part of the Downtown Business Association's Community Holiday Tree lighting and Carolfest, could continue under the new recommendation, he said.
The task force also will recommend that the Fort Collins Museum develop a multicultural display of religious and cultural symbols or objects associated with a variety of winter holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Diwali. Such a display could include such objects as a crèche with a star overhead, a menorah or a Kwanzaa kenora, to name a few.
The final decision for what is included in the display, which will likely be outdoors beginning in 2008, would rest with museum staff, Anthony said.
Because the Downtown Development Authority owns Old Town Square, any holiday display policies approved by council would not apply there.
"I expect criticism from people who feel like we are taking Christmas away. And I expect we will get criticism from people who think educational display endorses religions," Anthony said. "(But) to the extent we can, recognizing that offending no one will be impossible, we want to be inclusive."
For anti-Christmas moonbats, excluding Christmas trees = being more inclusive. Nuance. So is the inclusion of Anthony, the ACLU member. How many times were lawsuits mentioned before the rest of the task force finally conceded? The negative feedback to the mayor of Fort Collins remains strong:
Mayor Doug Hutchinson said he was pleased with the proposal that focused on the museum but had questions about other proposals that could limit decorations on the exterior of most city buildings.
Said Hutchinson: "I have had an ocean of input. People are saying that the issue is not religious. It's about a long-standing tradition. The basic intent (of the council) was not to destroy anything. When you do away with Christmas trees, when you are doing away with a tradition that people in Fort Collins hold dear; that is the nerve that was touched."
The holiday task force believes that a museum would provide the proper venue for the dangerous religious symbols:
The Fort Collins Museum would be the focal point of a multicultural winter holiday display under recommendations released Tuesday by a city task force.
In a 10-page document, the Holiday Display Task Force outlined a proposal for an educational, multicultural display outside the museum representing a variety of religious and nonreligious celebrations that take place between Nov. 1 and Jan. 30.
"What the task force tried to accomplish was to craft holiday displays to celebrate our commonality and also to recognize the diversity of winter holidays celebrated by members of the community and to create a festive atmosphere during the winter season," said Seth Anthony, one of the spokesmen for the task force.
Museum staff would design the display. The task force's document included illustrations of symbols as examples of what could be included in the display, including a crèche with a star above, a menorah, a Yule log and a snowflake, among others.
Committee approved "festive atmosphere" to be exact. And just so the religiosity doesn't get out of hand, they included "illustrations" of the permitted symbols. Apparently the Fort Collins Museum staff is either too stupid to know what should belong in a holiday display, or just simply can't be trusted to make their own decisions.
Perhaps another wing could be added to the museum showcasing rights and traditions once enjoyed by Americans before the onset of malignant moonbattery.
Who is responsible for the recommendations? Why Fort Collins' own "holiday display task force"--17 "religious, cultural, and legal experts". Holiday-by-committee will render the already watered-down displays into meaningless "winter symbols" when they issue their recommendation to the city council in the coming weeks.
In a move that replaces legislative fiat with potential bureaucratic red tape, Fort Collins City Council has formed a holiday display citizen "task force" assigned to grapple with the pressing and difficult issue of whether or not to display a menorah during the "holidays":
The Fort Collins City Council took the right approach to a difficult dilemma by agreeing to form a citizen task force to review the city's holiday display policy.
For two years, the issue of whether a menorah could or should be allowed on city property has been left generally unresolved. City Council voted last year to continue its policy of not allowing unattended displays in Old Town, even after public forums dominated by discussion from residents who advocated the placement. While the menorah was rejected, the city does allow a Christmas tree to be placed in Old Town.
Tuesday's decision, though, transcends the menorah issue to address the city's guidelines for all holiday exhibits - an approach that is both sensible and inclusive.
The same goes with forming a citizens' group made up of stakeholders from religious, business, social and government communities. It is hoped that a diverse group can form a diverse and, perhaps, creative approach that allows for free expression rather than exclusion. This group can start by studying how other communities have addressed what has become an all-too-common controversy throughout the nation.
This is, indeed, a community conversation. And it is one in which City Council may have to be led rather than lead on determining appropriate displays for public property.
A recommendation will be brought to the City Council by Oct. 31 and the council will vote on the issue at its Nov. 6 meeting.
"I am really delighted to see us taking this step," said Mayor Doug Hutchinson. "We learned a lot about this issue two years ago, and I think Fort Collins is a great city, and I think great cities are inclusionary. I think what council is doing tonight is an act of proactive inclusion."
The 20-member task force will include representatives from many different city organizations, both religious and secular in nature, city staff told council members. Controversy arose during the holiday season in Fort Collins during the past two years when City Council voted to maintain its policy of not allowing unattended displays – including the menorah – in Old Town. . . . "I am pleased council is doing this," said council member Kelly Ohlson, who suggested the task force at a study session. "I want to be clear, though, that we're not telling any churches or businesses or property owners what they can do on their own property. This purely a policy about what the city can do on city property."
"Inclusionary" bureaucracy. Gets you all warm and fuzzy!
We supported the display of a menorah in Fort Collins last December. That position hasn't changed.
We just find it amusing that a 20 person task force has been created to study the issue. Thanks to the ACLU for necessitating such a wasteful and pointless bureaucratic process, as the city cowers behind bureaucracy to avoid ACLU lawsuits and deflect cries of discrimination.
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