Festivus pole proposed at Green Bay City Hall

[TalkingDog]

Source: AP

The request by Sean Ryan of Allouez was made during the weekend after Green Bay City Council president Chad Fradette received the go-ahead last week from the city's advisory committee to install a nativity display at City Hall.

snip
A practicing Catholic who would prefer to see no religious displays at a government office, Ryan said his request to put up an undecorated six foot aluminum pole was intended to showcase how deciding what religions to include in the display can turn to the absurd.


snip
The mayor said he plans to forward some preliminary guidelines to the council Monday, including a limit on the time period for the displays and how to determine if a display is representative of a religion.

"This isn't an area that we have a lot of expertise," Schmitt said.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WI_FESTIVUS_NATIVITY_WIOL-?SITE=WIFON&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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I called out to Green Bay FSM adherents last week. Come on, guys, it looks like they are accepting Wiccan symbols and now a Festivus Pole.

Get out there and show some Noodle Love!

And on a very serious note the mayor, schmuck that he is, is going to try to define "religion" in order to weed out frivolous displays. What he doesn't realize that a religion is valid as long as it is conceivable.




My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Let him try to create a legal definition of "suitable religion"

It will be struck down faster than you can say, "violation of the First Amendment."

[JohnnyLib2]

2. As in Seinfeld?

OK, OK, I'll look it up.

[scarletwoman]

3. The Airing Of Grievances ought to be great fun!

The Feats Of Strength will probably be pretty entertaining as well.

Festivus for the rest of us! :toast:

sw

[Lorien]

7. Along with other holiday greetings, our local CW station airs regular

"Happy Festivus" greetings, so it must be legit!

:hi:

[Sabriel]

4. And who's going to determine what's frivolous?

Some people find the creche "frivolous," doesn't he know?

I can only think that he's opening himself up to some major trouble by forcing through his points this way. And it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

Edited to ask, "Could this be the opening salvo in the War on Festivus?"

[BadgerKid]

5. Ooh, I'll bring my camera

when I visit my family next week :)

[Trajan]

6. Ah .... It's a Festivus miracle !

Yadda yadda yadda .... for the rest of us ....

[moonbatmax]

8. Can we get 'em to put this up, too?

More Info

[TalkingDog]

13. Hi Moonbatmax, Welcome to DU!

Well, according to the rules they've set up, it should be acceptable.

After all, Buddhism has no gods to speak of, and yet is considered a religion. So if you've got some friends in Green Bay or you can contact some via an agnostics chatboard, Go For It!

And Happy Winter Season!




My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

[CraftyGal]

18. Yeah we agnostics need to be acknowledged, too.

[Apollo11]

9. Great! I always celebrate FESTIVUS at this time of year.

I think it is always healthy to have an "airing of grievances" before the start of the New Year.

But I am not happy about Catholics or Pastafarians trying to jump on the bandwagon.

FESTIVUS is only for Seinfeld fans who believe in Frank Costanza!! B-)

Tomorrow (12/18) it will be the 10 year anniversary of that episode!

And this year finally we have Season 9 available on DVD!!

Educate yourselves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus

[krkaufman]

10. Right! The mayor's missing the point that him defining an acceptable religion ...

... is exactly one of the things the Founders wrote the Constitution to, not just avoid but, prohibit.

[allisonthegreat]

11. Festivus for the rest of us..lol!n/t

[jonnyra]

12. How it started...

Frank: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

Kramer: What happened to the doll?

Frank: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born . . . a Festivus for the rest of us!

Kramer: That must've been some doll.

Frank: She was!


freaking hilarious!!

[Apollo11]

15. All hail Frank Costanza!!

[Javaman]

17. That man is a carbon copy of my dad. yes, I had a very weird upbringing. nt

[LiberalFighter]

14. Will the former Brown County (county seat Green Bay) GOP Chair be allowed to touch the baby Jesus

The chairman of the Republican Party in Brown County faces criminal charges for allegedly fondling a 16-year-old Ethan House runaway and providing the boy with beer and marijuana late last year.

Donald Fleischman, 37, of Allouez, was charged last month with two counts of child enticement, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child and a single charge of exposing himself to a child.

[Javaman]

16. And will airing of grievances be allowed? Or the feats of strength? nt

[Bigmack]

23. Shit... I thought every family....

get-together included the "airing of grievances".

[Javaman]

27. LOL so true! LOL nt

[bahrbearian]

19. Festivus for the Rest-of -Us

With Feats of Strengh.

[Swede]

20. I find tinsel distracting.

[boricua79]

21. he can't "define" a religion

that would infringe on my First Amendment rights. If it is public property, I have every right to place whatever decoration or statuette is representative of whatever deity I worship.

Plates of Spaghetti and Meatballs would be a nice touch!

[otherlander]

22. Did Bobby Hendrix choose the initials

on purpose or was it just a coincidence?

[TalkingDog]

24. Hendrix? Henderson? ummmm...what?

If you are talking about the FSM prophet Bobby, his last name is Henderson.

As for the initials I don't know what FSM might mean to the hip and urbane (being nerdly and geek-like myself).



My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

[otherlander]

26. I have misspoken the name of the great Prophet Bob.

I have called him Hendrix instead of Henderson.
I pray for forgiveness from his Noodly Goodness.
I apologize, and swear to live faithfully by the "Eight I Really Rather You Didn'ts" for the rest of my days.

R'amen.
:P

[Hekate]

25. Green Bay must be a heckuva place! I heard they're allowing a Wiccan Pentacle wreath this year.

Happiness from Solstice to Solstice!

Hekate

[goddess40]

29. The wreath was destroyed the night after it was put up

The cops aren't too interested and finding out who did it either, since the criminal left his ladder I think it should have been fairly easy to find out who did it. You can bet that if it had been the other display the person would be sitting in jail already.

[goddess40]

30. Liberty Counsel to Defend City Nativity

The Liberty Counsel formally announced today it will defend the City of Green Bay after it displayed a nativity scene at City Hall.

Wednesday - the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit against the City.

It says leaders violated the separation of church and state .

The Liberty Counsel says the City can legally display the nativity if it's displayed with other symbols of Christmas, like Santa, and it shouldn't be forced to display other religious symbols if they're not related to Christmas.

http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=7553344

Liberty Counsel is a just another religious right front group pretending to be something they aren't. The only religious freedom they are about is the freedom of Christianity to overrun everyone else. http://lc.org/

[tommytwotone]

28. post from 236.com

http://www.236.com/blog/w/joseph_minton_amann_and_tom_breuer/a_festivus_for_the_rest_of_us_3063.php

In one of those so-wonderfully-smart-assed-we-wish-we'd-thought-of-it moments, a Wisconsin man recently requested permission from the city of Green Bay to erect a Seinfeld Festivus pole at City Hall in response to the local government's inclusive religious display policy.
Of course, chances are the mayor and the city council thought they were being clever. By finding a backdoor for nativity displays on public property, the Christian soldiers in local government probably thought at the very worst they'd have to endure a papier-mâché menorah alongside their one true Messiah, and maybe a few scathing letters from Green Bay's Muslim community (a delightful young man in a blaze-orange ghutra named Jabir: you can't miss him).
Instead, they got a Wiccan pentacle wreath (which was promptly torn down by vandals) and the cheeky Festivus thing. Now they're no doubt hoping the whole thing blows over so they can get back to praising just one made-up deity instead of having to worry about dozens. (Indeed, in the latest development, the citys council and mayor voted to leave the nativity up and placed a moratorium on all other displays, no doubt responding to public pressure from such devotees of diversity as resident Tim Entringer, who proclaimed, "This is crazy. It's Christmas. I'm sad in my heart. There is only one God, and you've got to keep him up. The only way to get to God is through Jesus. It's the true religion. You have to do it.")
As card-carrying filthy disgusting heathen atheists, we find this whole thing hilarious. And since we live scant miles from Green Bay, in the beautiful Fox River Valley, we're naturally hoping this controversy drags out as long as possible so we can see something on the local news other than Kiwanis bake-sale coverage or morbidly obese Packer fans buying official team-sanctioned heart disease awareness caps.
Of course, unlike some intolerant Green Bay residents, we strongly support any citizen's right to practice any religion he or she chooses, no matter how crazy or stupid. So in the spirit of ecumenism, we hope 23/6 readers will waste both their and the government's time by flooding Green Bay City Hall with requests for religious displays that are even more asinine than the Christian one. We hope to see each of the nation's 300-plus recognized religions fully represented.
You can find Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt's contact info here.
(Note: We'd prefer you e-mail, but if you must call, make sure to throw in a "cripes" and a "jeez" or two, along with a few references to how your frickin' knee ain't never been right since you slipped on the sidewalk down by the Pick 'n Save, so it sounds like you're local.)
Here are a few suggestions for alternative religious displays, or you can come up with one of your own:
1) Scientologists could display a festive holiday panorama showing how the evil Galactic Confederacy emperor Xenu brought people to Earth 75 million years ago in a spacecraft, blew them up around volcanoes, and turned them into harmful body thetans that attach to modern humans and cause them to foolishly destroy their once-promising career. As a nod to traditional holiday observances, the final scene could show the resurrected Christ jumping on Oprah's couch like a crazy God-man.
2) Since Bill O'Reilly is so fond of defending government-sponsored displays of the crèche as an homage to Jesus the philosopher (no shit, this is his argument), secular humanists should feel free to erect statues of the Baby Sartre, the Baby Nietzsche, the Baby Camus, and the Baby Bertrand Russell.

3) Hindus should demand the right to put up statues of any number of their thousands of gods. The more arms the better.
4) Neo-druids and neo-pagans: One word--Stonehenge.
5) Rastafarians? Hey, go nuts.