Sociology > Education > Nativity scenes are out, carols are banned, and don't dare wish ...
| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
09 Dec 2005 01:31:58 PM |
| Object: |
Nativity scenes are out, carols are banned, and don't dare wish ... |
Nativity scenes are out, carols are banned, and don't dare wish ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1660576,00.html
[excerpt]
Guardian Unlimited - UK
Lionel Shriver
Wednesday December 7, 2005
The Guardian
"Merry Winter!" It's cold. It's dark. What's so damned merry about
winter? But that is the banner meeting customers this season in an
American Banana Republic. Between craven self-censorship and
government fiat, mention of Christmas has become equivalent to public
farting in the United States. No hip American urbanite would be caught
dead this December shouting anything more doctrinally specific than
"Happy Holidays!"
Meantime the American Civil Liberties Union has been suing the bejesus
- whoops! - suing the pants off local authorities who sanction
nativity scenes on public property. School boards across the country
have banned carols such as Silent Night in holiday assemblies. Frosty
the Snowman is tolerable, but the ACLU has threatened to sue a school
in Colorado for permitting Jingle Bells, which makes Jewish students
no longer feel welcome. In New York City, public schools, menorahs and
Islamic symbols are acceptable, but not nativity scenes. Teachers in
Sacramento have been forbidden to use the word Christmas in the
classroom, Illinois state government employees forbidden to say "Merry
Christmas" on the job.
Eschewing the hobgoblin of little minds, I am festively inconsistent
on this matter. Ordinarily, I happily accept the sneering label of
faith.org, secular fundamentalist. I embrace the separation of church
and state, and regard the constitutional ban on governmental
"establishment of religion" as giving America an ideological leg-up on
the UK. To the dismay of the Christian right, there is no Church of
the United States. Accordingly, I cheered when a massive stone
monument carved with the Ten Commandments was removed from an Alabama
courthouse by court-order in 2003. The following year, I applauded the
atheistic parent who sued in vain to remove "one nation, under God"
from the US pledge of allegiance, a piety only added in the McCarthy
era of 1954.
[end of excerpt]
**************************************************************
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)
.. . .
****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
