Battles have put the court in Christmas

[Thom Little]

By Eric Gorski
Denver Post
Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005


Somewhere at an undisclosed location in Denver is a symbol of the city's truce in the Christmas wars.

Workers with the Downtown Denver Partnership, with the guidance of Protestant and Catholic leaders who are paying the bill, are finishing off a new float for the annual Parade of Lights this Friday and Saturday.

No twinkling candy canes, Santa Claus or Frosty the Snowman here. This float will re-create the scene of Jesus' birth, complete with sequined angels and a swaddled doll as the Christ child.

The private, downtown booster group caved to community pressure and lifted a ban on religious entries this year after a proposed float by Faith Bible Chapel of Arvada was turned away a year ago, creating a controversy that attracted national attention.




http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3253258

[Toots]

1. This is a Private group putting on the Parade, they should be able to pick

who participates. Although it is done on Public streets so descrimination can't be allowed. The Church should have the right to enter and portrey their belief as best they can on their float.

[ret5hd]

3. they should be able to pick who participates: correct

it is done on Public streets so discrimination can't be allowed: incorrect.

witness klan rallies on public property...they can discriminate. right?

or cindy sheehan's stand in crawford tx...we could "discriminate" against pro-war people, right?

the city can't discriminate in giving permits to different groups to use those public properties, but the applicants for permits may...the opposing position merely has to apply for their own permits for their own events.

agree or disagree with their position, they merely caved to public pressure.

[Catch22Dem]

2. Our parade always has a jeebus float

I don't care that they do. There's always a Santa float too, and a "world" float, and a German float, and every other kind of float. I've never given a shit.

[msongs]

4. good, now the KKK and nazis can have a float, they are christians nt

[Miss Chybil]

5. Considering it is Christmas, you'd think they'd have something about Jesus

in it. What a no-brainer. If it were Halloween, that would be a different story.

[meow2u3]

6. I don't see anything wrong with putting a nativity scene out

I'm tired of any censorship--be it from the right or the left--that suppresses freedom of religion. I'm offended by this replacement of Christmas with the generic "holidays"--and I'm no right-wing wacko!

Why is it OK for Jewish people to display a menorah publicly, but not for Christians (including liberal and moderate ones) to display a Nativity scene in public? Why the double standard against a majority? Why are we picking only on Catholics and other Christians? Because of the wackos on the far right? Time to quit throwing out the baby with the bathwater and find a happy medium.

I'm fed up with both the religious fundamentalism on the right and the secular fundamentalism on the (far) left. Are we becoming anti-religion just as a reaction to, and a rebellion against, the religous right?