Merry Christmas 2008

See you on the flip-side--Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Golden: Yes To Santa, No To Menorah

"This is a chance for Golden to lead. I want to argue for diversity instead of neutrality. This should be a time to celebrate everything"--Ellene Duffy, Golden

Golden had the vote, and a requested Menorah is out (video):

Santa Claus will ride Golden's historic downtown arch again this holiday season, but an Evergreen rabbi will not be allowed to erect a menorah alongside a 30-foot spruce tree decorated with lights on city property.

The Golden City Council unanimously approved a resolution regarding holiday displays that was amended at the last minute to allow Santa to stay on the downtown arch because of its historical significance.

The ordinance prohibits holiday displays on city property of any religious symbols or symbols associated with a particular religious or cultural tradition.

City officials had amended the resolution to include Santa over concerns that he might be viewed as a religious symbol.

Rabbi Levi Brackman, who addressed council members Thursday night, said he was surprised at the exception in spite of an overwhelming show of support from citizens calling on the council to figure out a way to allow all kinds of religious displays during the Christmas season.

"I am stunned that council completely ignored the citizens here tonight," Brackman said.

It was Rabbi Brackman's request to include a Menorah in the city's holiday display that prompted Thursday's vote. Public sentiment against the ordinance and the city's own promise to study the issue next year means that like the holiday display controversy in Fort Collins, this subject won't be going away anytime soon:

The council passed the ordinance in response to Brackman's request to erect a menorah, a nine-stemmed candelabra that symbolizes the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Council members vowed to revisit the issue this spring to study ways to make holiday displays more inclusive of religious traditions. Mayor Jacob Smith said the council should take its time in making such decisions.

More than 25 citizens addressed the council about the controversy, frequently breaking into applause when speakers exhorted council members to find a way to include holiday displays from all religions. Ellene Duffy, 43, a 14-year Golden resident, described herself as "anti religious" and called on council members to find a way to include all religious views in holiday displays.

"This is a chance for Golden to lead," said Ellene Duffy, 43. "I want to argue for diversity instead of neutrality. This should be a time to celebrate everything."

Not a bad idea from this level-headed resident. Hopefully Golden's vote amounts to more than a knee-jerk reaction to avoid engaging the citizenry on an issue that is clearly important to many from a variety of religious (and even irreligious) beliefs.

'Tis The Season For Holiday Display Controversies And Atheist Advertising

It is November, so it must be time for holiday display controversies, with a special bonus this year--atheist billboards, from D.C. to Denver.

First from D.C.:

You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.
. . .
"We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group. "Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."
. . .
Edwords said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."

A similar campaign has sprouted in Denver:

Here's an unusual sign that the holidays are coming: just in time for Christmas, a group of atheists and freethinkers plan to sponsor 11 billboards in Colorado.

Against a blue sky backdrop, their billboard poses the question: "Don't believe in God? - You are not alone."

COCORE, an umbrella organization of 11 groups ranging from the Boulder Heretics to the Humanists of Colorado, are spending $5,000 to post their message at 10 sites in Denver and one in Colorado Springs, for four weeks starting around Nov. 17.
. . .
Straub said the one sign in Colorado Springs was not meant to tweak religious groups in that area.

"Absolutely not," Straub said Tuesday, noting that there is a freethinkers chapter in Colorado Springs.

He said the primary goal of the campaign is to reach about eight to 14 percent of the population who tell pollsters that they are not religious.

I support both campaigns on First Amendment grounds. There is nothing inherently offensive about the content, and the phrasing itself isn't as potentially provocative as the D.C. ad campaign.

I do, however, question the timing.

Why not conduct a campaign that occurs year-round? The groups believe that their efforts aren't intended to "tweak religious groups," but the choice of November/December should clearly indicate their intentions. At worst it is a cynical attempt to draw free media attention due to the proximity to Christmas and Hanukkah, and at best is a lame gesture at piggy-backing on the popularity of the holiday season.

Meanwhile, fresh on the heels of the holiday display controversy the last few years up in Fort Collins (extensive coverage and analysis by SP), a rabbi has asked the city of Golden to allow a Menorah display on city property, prompting another dispute over displays:

'Tis the season for municipal holiday decorations, and the city of Golden, after being asked to allow placement of a Jewish menorah on public property, will consider a resolution Thursday that says only secular displays are acceptable.

Golden's proposed policy excludes religious symbols. Its list of acceptable celebratory symbols includes snowflakes, icicles, snowmen, snowballs, ice skates, skis, penguins, polar bears, other animals, lights and foliage — real or artificial and in garland, bush or tree form.

Rabbi Levi Brackman, director of Judaism in the Foothills, has asked the City Council for permission to install a 6- to 8-foot menorah, a candelabrum used during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The site Brackman requested is on city property, next to a large conifer that is traditionally strung with lights, at 10th and Washington streets.

Mayor Jacob Smith said Brackman's request catalyzed the discussion at an Oct. 16 study session of the city's first formal policy on holiday decorations.

After reading the city's resolution, drafted Oct. 30, Brackman realized its passage would make the menorah a no-go in Golden.

"This is secularist discrimination against religion," said Brackman, who heads the center for Jewish education and outreach. "And the other thing is that . . . Christmas trees are not secular. You won't find a secular person from the Jewish or Muslim traditions who celebrates the holidays with lights on trees."

At the study session, the mayor said trying to evenhandedly include many religious and secular symbols in a constitutionally correct, multicultural display — the all-or-none approach approved in recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions — would be challenging enough to cause city officials extreme hair loss or even "brain damage."

The city will consider excluding all religious symbols.

The flat-footed government solution to be inclusive of all during the "holiday season"--exclude all religious symbols.

It doesn't appear that Golden has backed itself into the corner the way that Fort Collins own display regulations had--allowing a Christmas tree (described as such) while appearing to not allow a Menorah. The mayor's lame joke about hair loss and "brain damage" notwithstanding, it is clearly the job of the City Council to sort out these difficult, often heated controversies, and the Supreme Court appears to give cities little flexibility with an all-or-nothing approach.

Thursday's vote will certainly not end the growing controversy in Golden--we'll keep you posted.

Christmas Day 2007

Merry Christmas!


Esteban Murillo, "Adoration of the Shepherds"

Daily Nativity 121107; Updated And Bumped

A little humor for Christmas Eve, bumped up from 12/11.

Now the moonbattery, courtesy of my school:

Dear University Community,

It is with the warmest greetings that I write to you this, my last Communiqué in 2007. The holiday season is upon us all and I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a restful season and peace in the New Year.

As I was reflecting on this season, I was struck by the arrival of another Winter Solstice. This year’s solstice – the year’s shortest day and longest night – will arrive on Dec. 22. As we all know, astronomically, the solstice is the instant when the sun’s position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the person observing. In broader terms, the Winter Solstice marks what many consider mid-winter and delineates the point at which our daylight hours will grow longer and the nights shorter.

While the astronomical significance of the solstice is clear, its importance as a symbolic moment in our year has captured my thoughts. Most cultures stretching back thousands of years have celebrated this event as a time to reflect on that most basic cycle of life, of birth, death, and rebirth. The lengthening days, for most ancient cultures, heralded their ability to continue their agrarian or nomadic way of life. It reminded them of the ordered march of the yearly seasonal cycle and the promise of rebirth at the end of the long winter months.

This event parallels the moment we find here at our university in many ways. During the course of this year, as in the life of any institution, we have faced many challenges. During these challenges, I know that each of us have also found moments that renewed our sense of purpose and deepened our pride in individual and collective accomplishments. It was novelist and playwright Albert Camus who wrote, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

May the symbol of the Winter Solstice assist you in finding your “invincible summer” and may it remind all of us of the great potential that lies ahead for our individual work and this great institution. I want to thank each of you for your daily dedication to supporting and serving our university.

Happy Holidays,

M. Roy Wilson

Chancellor

Not a single mention of, you know, Christmas--and I received this "communique" today, no less. Just a little PC "holiday" cheer.

Via XDA, this little response to moonbats:

To all my friends on the left--Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to observe religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures.


And to all my Republican friends--Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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Hieronymous Bosch

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