http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/05/interest_groups_gird_for_fight_over_christmas_observances/
[excerpt]
Interest groups gird for fight over Christmas observances
By Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press | November 5, 2005
NEW YORK -- It's weeks before Thanksgiving but already interest groups are
preparing for an intense conflict over Christmas observances by cities and
public schools, with one conservative group lining up hundreds of lawyers
to work on the issue.
Communities and courts have long fielded protests against municipal creche
displays and school Nativity pageants, based on strict views of
church-state separation and sensitivity toward religious minorities.
But in recent years, local disputes have extended -- to carol singing,
wordless instrumental music, Christmas trees and decorations, classroom
visits by Santa Claus, distribution of Christmas-themed cards and gifts,
''Merry Christmas!" greetings, and designation of Christmas on official
calendars.
This week, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in
Scottsdale, Ariz., said its 800 cooperating lawyers have volunteered to
handle without fee complaints about ''improper attempts to censor the
celebration of Christmas in schools and on public property." In 2004, the
second year of its ''Christmas Project," affiliated lawyers sent a detailed
memo on the alliance's view of Christmas and constitutional law to 7,000
school districts. The 2005 effort, already underway, adds city officials.
A similar information campaign is being waged by Liberty Counsel, another
Christian legal group based in Orlando, Fla., and the Christian Educators
Association International, representing 8,000 public school teachers.
The topic also is the subject of a polemic by John Gibson of the Fox News
Channel that is selling briskly: ''The War on Christmas: How the Liberal
Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought."
Gibson, who calls himself a ''non-practicing Christian," notes that his
Jewish son researched the book. He says agitation against Christmas
observance comes primarily from ''secularists, so-called humanists, trial
lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-racked Christians."
ACLU religion director Jeremy Gunn was in meetings and unavailable for
comment, a spokeswoman said. But an official ACLU bulletin says the
Constitution forbids school observances ''that promote or emphasize the
religious significance" of Christmas, but not aspects ''that have become
part of our country's secular culture."
[end of excerpt]
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Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the U.S. and a couple from overseas as well]
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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