If it’s those four weeks between Thanksgiving and December 25, then it must be time once again for the Christmas Wars. The first salvo comes from Chicago where the new movie “The Nativity Story” has been deemed inappropriate as a sponsor of the Christkindlmarket, the German Christmas festival, because “it might offend non-Christians.”
Yes, re-read that. People attending a Christmas festival might be offended by a poster advertising a movie about the first Christmas. That’s like holding a D-Day commemoration on June 6 and banning a poster for the movie “Saving Private Ryan” because it might offend pacifists.
The city does not want to appear to endorse one religion over another, said Cindy Gatziolis, a spokeswoman for the Mayor’s Office of Special Events. She acknowledged there is a nativity scene, but also said there will be representations of other faiths, including a Jewish menorah, all put up by private groups. She stressed that the city did not order organizers to drop the studio as a sponsor.
When an American city holds a special event commemorating the Muslim holy day of Eid-al-fitr, and you know one will if it hasn’t already, I want there to be Jewish and Christian symbols present in order not “to appear to endorse one religion over another.”
Bureaucrats: making society safe for agnostics, atheists, and professional Scrooges.
I’ve suggested as much in the past. The defense is that none of Salem’s Halloween celebrations mention Wicca and making it as generic as “Winter Holiday” celebrations. And I’ve been told that witch logo is not considered a religious symbol by the Wiccans (they find it an offensive stereotype) so a challenge on those grounds would fail too.
Wish we could make a stink about it anyway though.
I might generally agree, although not all “Holiday Fairs” are attempts to avoid saying Christmas. In my own parish the parish fair is in October to take advantage of the tourist rush and it’s a little too early to call it a Christmas. It’s also a little too pagan to call it a harvest festival and we definitely want to avoid Halloween fair, so we compromise and call it a Holiday Fair.