Christmas banned from Parade

[Broken Glass Can]

Carolers defy religious ban (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041205-125736-6771r.htm)

most revealing paragraph:

Fanning the outrage was the committee's approval of a float sponsored by Two Spirits, an American Indian group that considers homosexuality to be holy. Critics complained that the committee had broken its own rules by accepting the religious-themed float.


(Note to Cyrus: search the Rocky Mountain News if you want a different news source - I won't be doing the work for you this time /images/graemlins/cool.gif)

[Cyrus]

The poster Broken Glass Can (previously known as "GWB") is surely a slick fella!

[ QUOTE ]
Washington Times : Carollers defy religious ban (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041205-125736-6771r.htm)

[/ QUOTE ]

The Washington Times story is the usual neo-con scare-mongering bullcrap. It distorts a local event into national prominence and makes it look as if ..Christians are persecuted in America. The reality is, of course, that the Christian Right has succeeded in high jacking the agenda of one of the two mainstream political parties and wield power without precedent. America has always been intolerant and prone to demagoguery in religious matters and, at the same time, political leaders have alarmed the populations about "creeping atheism", etc.

...If only it were so!

[ QUOTE ]
Most revealing paragraph: Fanning the outrage was the committee's approval of a float sponsored by Two Spirits, an American Indian group that considers homosexuality to be holy. Critics complained that the committee had broken its own rules by accepting the religious-themed float.


[/ QUOTE ]

In reality, the city allowed the tribe to display a tribal float and NOT a float that was related to homosexuality. The Washington Times article, typically, makes it seem as if a gay display was allowed and a Christian one disallowed.

[ QUOTE ]
Note to Cyrus: search the Rocky Mountain News if you want a different news source.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks but I was gonna do that in any case. And the RMN (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3374866,00.html) has the same story, albeit more revealingly : The parade was going smoothly all these years until a religious fundamentalist group tried to usurp it and the city council objected to that.

My personal opinion : 1. Christmas has become something beyond a religious holiday in America. It is and should be celebrated for what it actually is, i.e. as a national holiday of cheer, hope and the shopping spirit.

2. Christianity is also part of the history of the largest majority of Americans. Trying to deny this is silly (and politically suicidal). The city of Denver and the whole country needs a different mind set than the one employed by the Denver city councilmen (furiously backtracking (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/holidays/3966614/detail.html) a day later).

3. Religion was not centre stage in American politics until the neo-conservatives brought it there. The antagonism this radicalisation of religious/Christian advocacy has brought along with it an equal amount of silliness from its adversaries, the secular people, who will occasionally lapse into misguided "political correctness". The prominence of the Christian Right, however, and the dangers emanating from that prominence are far more serious than anything the "atheists" can offer!

4. Wasn't Karl Rove born in Denver? (Is it the altitude?)

--Cyrus