[topic regretted] (was Jews against anti-Christian ...)

[Frelga]

Of course not, Whistler. If I thought it was, I would not bring it up here.

And I hope it is not necessary for me to clarify that I do not for a moment accuse anybody here of anti-Semitism, whatever their position on the subject.

I was simply trying to point out what I saw as the underlying reason for this issue coming to such prominence now - the declining public support for the current administration.

I should probably been more clear - I think that over anti-Semitism plays any role for only a small group of even those people who agree with the "anti-holidays" agenda.

[Whistler]

I have stressed that I believe there is a strong anti-Christian element involved in the de-Christianization of Christmas. However, I concede (and I should know, as one in advertising) that the market is behind it as well.

Non-religious people often celebrate Christmas because most people of all beliefs agree with its basic ideas of peace, generosity and goodwill. But religious people who are not Christians are unlikely to observe the holiday because to do so would involve a compromise of their beliefs. An agnostic might celebrate Christmas, but a Hindu probably would not.

So what is a marketer to do, if he wants to get absolutely everyone to celebrate Christmas by buying whatever junk he peddles? He discourages everything that is religious about the holiday, envisioning a time when Buddhists and Jews and Muslims (yes, everybody!) will be forking over money for Christmas gifts and goodies, completely indifferent to (or even unaware of) what the day meant, long ago.

A capitalist can dream, can’t he?

[JewelSong]

Every Who down in Whoville,
the tall and the small,
was singing--without any presents at all!

He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming-- it came!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his Grinch feet
ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling:
"How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
He puzzled and puzzed,
till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something
he hadn't before:
"Maybe Christmas," he thought,
"doesn't come from a store--
Maybe Christmas--perhaps--
means a little bit more."

From my all-time favorite Christmas story.

Because not only did the Grinch change. The Who's welcomed him home. And that, to me, is the crux of Christmas, of Easter, of my own belief in Christ and the center of my Christianity.

There can always be redemption and there can always be forgiveness. By the grace of God. And only by God's grace.

[anthriel]

I'm really concerned that I should not post in this thread, because I have such labile emotions about this subject. I beg your tolerance, for a moment.

I have no problem whatsoever with "Happy Holidays" as a greeting, even though I am a Christian. Christmas is a holiday, and I hope it to be happy. I'm good.

I also have no trouble honoring others people's religious beliefs, and can say "Happy Hanukah" to a Jew quite honestly. I do hope their holiday is happy. I enjoy learning about the traditions of other religions, and have been quite moved by some of their celebrations.

However, I have to express my grief in the face of a troubling trend that I have seen for a while now; the idea that every religion EXCEPT that of Christians is to be seen as "equal".

My daughter sang in her public school's choir recital last week. There were two songs from the Jewish faith; one was quite explicit about "lighting candles celebrating the miracle of long ago". A clear nod to the religion behind the song.

The rest of the songs were of the "Boogey Woogey Santa" ilk; there was no mention of Christmas at all. We had "Frosty the Snowman" and "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer". Was that supposed to be the part where Christmas was honored... or even mentioned? Santa is not Christmas. Grandma and Reindeer jokes are not Christmas. "O Holy Night" would have been nice, but too much for the public school to risk, I suppose.

A bigger example involved my experiences several years ago at my workplace. I worked every weekend for seven years, as a way to minimize the amount of outside daycare that my husband and I had to finance. For seven years I asked for Easter Sunday off, because, to me, Easter is a pretty important religious holiday. Easter is not, however, recognized as a religious holiday at my workplace, and in seven years, I worked five Easters.

Not a big deal, really... I celebrate Easter in my heart, and can do that any day. I would have liked to celebrate Easter with my family, but that was impossible, or so it seemed. I coped.

In my fourth year in that job, we had two Hopi women hired... the Hopi are a tribe of Plains indians from northern Arizona. Their religious holidays are not on specific days; they are defined by when the crop comes in, coupled with the latest rainfall and phase of the moon, things like that.

Those two women called in several times a month saying that they could not come to work that day; that because it had rained, or something like that, it was actually a religious holiday for them. They were never denied that day off, even when they called the same day they were due at work.

It irked me. I have to admit it irked me. But I didn't get really angry until one of the Hopi floating holidays fell on Easter Sunday, and I was at work and they called in to say they were not coming to work because of their holiday... and their absence was excused.

I complained to upper management, and was given a flyer on "sensitivity training seminars". As if my desire to have my own religious observances have equal weight with theirs implied I was not being "sensitive" enough.



When I complained again, I was told that I was putting my job in peril, and embarrassing my supervisors, with my questions. The Hopis were given their days off, and I had an upper management person tell me in confidence that they would always be given their days off. No matter who else had asked, for whatever reason, the Hopi religious holidays were going to be honored. When I asked why, she said that the management felt that there would be more negative publicity if the company denied a Hopi religious day than if they denied a Christian one.

Sadly, I think they were right.

[Whistler]

Exactly and precisely what I mean. Thank you.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Anthy, thank you so much for posting that. Several people have asked for specific examples of the types of anti-Christian discrimination that Jn and Whistler referenced, but until now, no one has really provided any. The situations that you describe really illustrate the point that they were making for me.

[JewelSong]

Anthriel, the fact that you did not get Easter Sunday off is inexcusable, in my opinion. And your employer's explanation was ridiculous. Easter Sunday is a Christian high holy day - equal in importance to Yom Kippur in the Jewish faith. It is obscene (and perhaps illegal) that you were not allowed the day off.

When I worked at a nursing home, there was much cooperation amongst the staff...Christian staff would volunteer to work Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShanah, and Jewish (and other) staff would work Christmas and Easter.

I do think that there is a fear of doing anything overtly "Christian" in public schools now. And I think this is a reaction to the times, not too long ago, when that was all you heard at a school Christmas concert. (It was called that, blatantly!) There wasn't too much difference between the concert at a school and what you'd hear at midnight Mass...and if you didn't believe in it, that was your problem. We are now paying for that hubris with an overly PC conciousness. I think the pendulum will eventually swing back a bit - hopefully with a bit more sensitivity.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Anthriel, the fact that you did not get Easter Sunday off is inexcusable, in my opinion. And your employer's explanation was ridiculous. Easter Sunday is a Christian high holy day - equal in importance to Yom Kippur in the Jewish faith. It is obscene (and perhaps illegal) that you were not allowed the day off.

I would say that that would constitute disparate treatment on the basis of religion. But I think it is a further symptom of the point that Anth (and Jn and Whistler) is making that in reality it would be a very difficult case to win. Much more so then if the Hopi women were denied the right to take off for their holidays.

[Whistler]

• In Illinois, state government workers were forbidden from saying the words "Merry Christmas" while at work

• In Rhode Island, local officials banned Christians from participating in a public project to decorate the lawn of City Hall

• A New Jersey school banned even instrumental versions of traditional Christmas carols

• Arizona school officials ruled it unconstitutional for a student to make any reference to the religious history of Christmas in a class project

These are just a small handful of examples from the book "The War Against Christmas," by John Gibson, available from most online booksellers.

The book "Persecution," by David (not Rush) Limbaugh, I have mentioned already. It begins with an account of a Texas district judge who decrees that any student uttering the name "Jesus" at a public school graduation will be arrested and incarcerated for up to six months. A bit of his ruling:

"And make no mistake, the court is going to have a United States marshal in attendance...anyone who thinks I'm kidding better think again...anyone who violates these orders, no kidding, is going to wish that he or she had died as a child."

There are 400 pages of this. If I have not cited examples before, it is not because I do not have them but because I have too many.

[Whistler]

I was just reading a review of Gibson's book on Amazon. Someone suggested that anybody who believes it should put a loaded pistol in his mouth and "paint the town red."

This seems to be the general concensus.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Whistler. I meant no criticism of you or Jn, as I hope you both realize.

Edited to add: this was in response to your first post, not your second.

[Whistler]

None at all, V.

Examples were certainly in short supply and long overdue.

[Erunáme]

That's so unfair Anthy. I can't believe they gave you a sensitivity flyer when all you wanted is for your own religious needs to be recognized as well.

Whistler, some of those examples are very surprising....and sad. I don't understand why all religions can't be treated equally. Trying to correct past wrongs has gone to far it seems.

[anthriel]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate not getting pounced on. I am a little leary of talking about things like this...


Jewel, I agree that the lack of Christmas songs in the lineup is probably just the pendulum swinging; there were probably too many Christmas songs in the lineup of public school choir performances before, and this omission now is a corrective effort.

However, I must point out that when I was in elementary school, I was in the choir too, and clearly remember singing Hanukah songs (Oh Hanukah O Hanukah come light the menorah... let's have a party, we'll all dance the hora...) as well as Christmas ones. That was more than 30 years ago, and in the Deep South, where people are characterized as more xenophobic and exclusionary (one of the most favored adjectives for my home state is "backward") than most. Go figure.

I didn't know what a menorah was, but figured it out soon enough, and never minded in the least singing about a Jewish holiday. I thought it was kind of neat, actually.

So, as Eru says, the goal should be to honor ALL religions. Why must one be treated with such disdain?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If I could answer that question, my dear Anthriel, I could solve the world's problems. :|

[Ethel]

Anthriel, I agree that both examples you provide are genuine discrimination. In the case of the school, it's possible that a polite letter to the school board pointing out the clear discrepancy - a religious Hannukah song but not a religious Christmas song being permitted - might possibly do some good. But it also might not.

Schools can be very frustrating. The bureaucratic mind looms large there. My son was once suspended from school for a day for fighting. He was in the fourth grade and had never been involved in any playground altercation. An older and much larger boy (with a history of aggression) was bullying a small friend of my son's. The older boy pushed my son's friend and he fell over. My son retaliated by pushing the older boy, and making it clear that if he continued to try to harm the smaller child, he would first have to fight my son. The facts were not in dispute. All witnesses agreed that the older boy was the agressor, and that he appeared bent on continuing to harrass the smaller child had my son not intervened. Result: both the older boy and my son were suspended from school for a day. They had a zero tolerance philosophy, you see. Guilt or innocence, aggression against versus defense of a smaller child - these were irrelevant. The principal privately admitted to me that the older boy was a known troublemaker and that the situation was unfair to my son but "this is our policy."

In the case of your employer... I find their words and actions genuinely shocking. I don't disagree with them allowing the Hopi women time off for their religious holidays. But to grant them preference over Christian religious holidays, and the holiest one in the calendar at that... is just wrong. I understand why they worry about negative publicity, but wrong is wrong. (I also think there is the potential for plenty of negative publicity in granting preference to one religious group over another. The trouble is, you'd have to be willing to make that publicity. They are probably counting on you not doing so.)

[Whistler]

Zero tolerance, in all its forms, is the philosophy of cowards and fools.

It comes down to this: I don't have the guts or brains to think or act as anything other than a puppet, so I'll fall back on whatever arbitrary rule was written by somebody else, and in so doing I can guard my precious behind no matter what the unjust consequences to anybody else.

Off-topic, but that phrase is another one of my hot buttons.

[JewelSong]

Here's the thing about celebrating ALL holidays in an attempt to make things "equal."

Christmas and Hanukkah are in NO WAY equal. Christmas is one of the most important days in the Christian year. Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday in the Jewish faith that happens to fall around the same time as Christmas.

Somewhere along the line somebody thought that Jewish people should have "equal time" and so they concocted a bunch of Hanukkah songs using old melodies and stuck them into the series books that are still used in music classes today. And all of a sudden, we had people thinking that "Hanukkah was the Jewish Christmas." (I still hear people say that.)

If you want to give all religions "equal time" then you should really be teaching and singing about Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShannah in late September and October.

It is ludicrous to think that singing an equal amount of songs from each holiday is somehow "balancing things out." It is even more ludicrous to sing Hanukkah songs and not sing Christmas songs at all, for fear of offending someone.

As a public school music teacher, I think the answer is to NOT HAVE A CONCERT in December at ALL. Honestly. There is so much going on as it is...and the concert ends up being less about music education and more about making sure you are pleasing everyone. And in the frenetic attempt at inclusion, there have been some truly horrible holiday songs written with little or no musical value.

Do a concert in January. Choose music for its intrinsic musicality....sacred or secular. (The American Choral Directors Association has a great position statement about the use of sacred music in public schools.) And skip all the mediocore and insipid songs about Santa's sleigh and Rudolph's nose (ack! ptui!) so on and so forth.

[Whistler]

In California, six dancing girls aged 8-12 have just been ejected from a “Holiday Festival” because they wear shirts with the slogan “Jesus Christ Dancer.”

This, despite the fact that a Hawaiian group was allowed to sing a Hawaiian prayer song in their native language. When questioned, an official responded that “I don’t understand (that) song, but I understand what those shirts say.”

Solution: translate all religious Christmas content into languages that almost nobody understands, and the population is safe.

[JewelSong]

Ignorance. Ain't it grand!

Here's a true story. A number of years ago, I was the music/drama director for a Montessori school. Very upscale, very progressive. Very rich, white, insular neighborhood. Secular Humanism ran rampant.

Anyway, every year, the elementary school did a full-scale historical musical, based on whatever they were studying in the curriculum. It was completely integrated with their academics, so I was allowed a LOT of rehearsal time and leeway. Very cool and a lot of fun for me. We did one about Abigail Adams, one about immigration, one about Westward expansion.

The last year I was there, they were studying the Civil War and I suggested Harriet Tubman. Great idea! End of slavery and all. So I wrote a musical, using many traditional spirituals because...hello, they were songs of the time and Harriet Tubman believed that God was telling her what to do. You can't really discuss Harriet without discussing her faith.

The owners of the school were visibly uncomfortable with the spirituals. Why did we have to sing them? I explained why and explained the context and explained every damn thing. Finally they acquiesced. Yes, it was okay to sing them. But maybe, just to make everyone feel more comfortable, I could end with a non-religious song. A grand finale. You know, something like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Now, in case you are unfamiliar with the words to said song, let me tell you that the lyrics are more blatantly Christian than any spiritual ever was...I mean the thing begins "Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord..."

But they had no idea. And I didn't illuminate them. I just nodded and said, "Sure." And so, at the end of the play, we sang the Battle Hymn. Great words, by the way.

For some reason, this song doesn't seem to bother the PC police. They don't even know what they're singing.

(If you'd like to see all the verses to Julia Ward Howe's famous hymn, here they are. My father could sing them all from memory.
http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/bathymn.html)