Last Minute Vote Saves Nativity Scene
Shortly after voting to censure the mayor, the city council was faced with another controversial vote in order to save the much-embattled Nativity scene at the city’s Christmas in the Park display.
Trying to avoid a lawsuit filed by dozens of pagans demanding the removal of the Nativity scene from the city sponsored display, the council passed an emergency compromise measure that was accepted by the secularists; Baby Jesus was officially renamed the Holiday Baby.
“We are grateful that the city council finally capitulated,” said Samantha Kyle the President of the National Association of Heathens. “Although it was a lot easier when Susan Hammer was mayor.”
The city agreed to remove the Baby Jesus and replace him with a non-denominational Holiday Baby surrounded by Disney characters including Simba, Bambi, Pooh Bear, Mickey Mouse, Mulan and Huey, Dewey & Louie Duck.
But that did not seem to satisfy everyone. Lead by talk show host Bill O’Reilly of The O’Reilly Factor, Christian groups took to the streets on Thursday night, in protest of the cannibalization and antisepticising of their religious celebration.
Hours later, the mayor took a call from Pope Benedict XVI who first asked for the mayor’s confession, and when that was not forthcoming, issued the following statement, “I think the choice to substitute the Holy Family was disgraceful and insulting,” said the Pope. “Coppola movie characters would have been a lot better: Vito, Sonny, Michael, Tom Hagen, and Luca Brazi. Can you imagine ‘The Dapper Jesus?’ Things would have been a lot different.”
“Crisis averted,” said a relieved city councilman Forest Williams. “Now on with Festivus, for the rest of us!”
If the Merc were smart they’d hire John to write political satire for the paper. There has been a good, funny column in any local paper since Art Hoppe passed away.
While John has had a very clever column now and then, he hasn’t shown he could sustain a regular column in a publication. Maybe some day.
Who is bringing the pole?
Great piece John! Keep it up.
This just in…
Reuters is reporting that the 9th Circuit has sided with the ACLU and agreed that the city name of “San Jose” is overtly religious and disenfranchising to non-Catholics.
The ruling requires that the municipality known as “San Jose” has until January 31, 2006 to shorten it’s name to “Jose”.
When informed of the ruling, the Mayor replied, “This isn’t a big deal for us – our city is way out in front on issues of inclusiveness.”
“For example, at the request of the GGTDL, the council today has ordered the city’s maintenance department to replace the Man/Woman symbols on all city hall restrooms with pictures of ‘Pat’, the character from the well known Saturday Night Live sitcom”.
“Separation of church and state.” is not working the way it was intended if we are afraid to have a true Nativity scene! When did Christmas, Church and God become evil? Have some Christmas bells and stand up to them.
Christmas ceased being a religious holiday generations ago. Now stores are selling Xmas stuff before Thanksgiving. This whole current Xmas nonsense is just one more example of why politics needs to be completely divorced from religion.
This means no God on money, in the Pledge of Allegiance, swearing in of court witnesses, or any elected official, no military chaplains, or any other public paid preacher perpetually pontificating mythology.
If you want Xmas satire then the Boondocks comic strip is currently doing a great job of satirizing both Christmas, religion, and Santa Claus.
Also, shouldn’t “excepted by the secularists” be “accepted by the secularists”?
Ho Ho Ho-
Thanks for the catch…That was a bad one!…Can you tell my editor is in Ireland? Maybe I don’t need one if the blogosphere is looking out for me…
Let’s keep that embarrassing mistake between us…
Holiday—as pointed out by the Colbert Report is derived from the words “Holy Day”. So those who oppose a “Holy Day” should also oppose Chirstmas—which is derived from the Catholic version of “Christ Mass”.
Those Sheet Wearing, Bible Thumpers in the South are obviously confused. For in their eyes the Pope is only marginally more tolerable than a African American, Muslim or Jew.
As for me, if the God of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell exists, I plan on going to hell with the rest of the fun people.
Hell for me would be having to spend eternity with those nuts.
I remember when mayor Susan Hammer proposed moving the manger out of christmas in the park. It was covered in the spanish-speaking media and the prospect of a protest of Mexican Catholics and evangelicals forced her to reconsider. It was just a misunderstanding. Sure…
“Sheet wearing bible thumpers…”
Why Rich, you’re a small-minded bigot. A politically correct bigot but a bigot all the same.
Get out of your bubble Rich, Catholics are making relations with evangelicals and evangelicals are less and less likely to be white. Just get around San Jose and you’ll notice that.
#9 The idea simply put is to tolerate all religions, or the nonreligious, and their points of view. Why lump all Christians in with Pat and Jerry.
Quetzalcoatl can be in our park and yet you want no Christmas in the park. Just what are you afraid of? Don’t understand your fear. Leave our “Day” alone and don’t let the Heavenly Gates hit you on your way down.
Rich-
I agree with you, nice post. I will also meet you in hell. We’ll have a great time!
HoiPolloi,
Am I prejudice? You bet, I despise Nazis, KKK members all others whose doctrine is hate.
Joann,
I don’t condemn all christians, just the rightwing variety.
But we should hear more condemnation from mainstream Christians about the nuts who give the entire religion a bad name. In fact, that goes for all religions.
Finally, let’s stop tolerating people and embrace them. Each culture can be honored for their individual contributions they bring to our society—except, of course, for nazis, KKKers etc.
Rich
Christmas is Christmas, Kwanza is Kwanza, Hannukah is Hannukah. People need to get over it. The tyranny of the minority—the politically correct and the atheists is getting to be too much. If you don’t want to celebrate Christmeas, then just don’t, and let those who want to do so. Same with Hannukah, Kwanza, etc. Below a politically incorrect piece forwarded to me recently.
The Teacher, Ms. Pelzner, was very curious about
how each of her students celebrated Christmas.
She called on young Patrick Murphy. “Tell me
Patrick, what do you do at Christmas time?” she asked.
Patrick addressed the class, “Well Ms. Pelzner, me
and my twelve brothers and sisters go to the midnight Mass and we sing hymns, then we come home very late and we put mince pies by the back door and hang up our stockings. Then all excited we go to bed and wait
for Santa Claus to come with all our toys.” “Very nice, Patrick,” she said. “Now Jimmy Brown, what do you do at
Christmas?”
Me and my sister also go to Church with Mom and Dad
and we sing carols and we get home ever so late. We put cookies and milk by the chimney and we hang up our stockings. We hardly sleep, waiting for Santa Claus to
bring our presents, Jimmy replied. ” That’s also very nice, Jimmy,” she said.
Realizing there was a Jewish boy in the class and
not wanting to leave him out of the discussion, she asked Isaac Cohen the same question,” Now Isaac, what do you do at Christmas?”
Isaac said, “It’s the same thing every year. Dad
comes home from the office. We all pile into the Rolls Royce, and then we drive to his toy factory. When we get inside, we look at the empty shelves and begin to sing, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Then we all go to the
Bahamas”.
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Rich,
Who qualifies as the equivalent of Nazis and KKK members?
Falwell and Robertson?
Dobson?
What positions on what issues qualify for this designation in your mind?
Since Popes JPII and Benedict XVI have positions on social issues that qualify as right-wing in this country, does that make them right-wing equivalents of Nazis and KKK members?
How about Conservative Catholic Justice Clarence Thomas?
Is being bothered by the change in the naming of the holiday as Christmas and replacing it with the generic “holiday”, qualify one as a right-wing Christian?
The un-PC are those who get offended at all things Christmas. If they are inclusive as they say they are or want to be, then all the more that they should come out and extend their hand in celebration with the Christians. And vice versa, the Christians should be ready to extend their hands to the Jews at Hanukkah or to the Muslims at the end of Ramadan.
The whining that we get from all of these supposedly PC people is no different from a little kid who is jealous over a brother or a sister who is getting a lot of attention because it’s their birthday. Grow up or better yet, wait for your turn.
Rich,
“Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
…
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now …”
Bob Dylan
In was in mid-December when Ho Ho Ho, a man of great certainty and secularity, first came to Absurdiu—a land where everyone is free to believe whatever they wish, though not a single belief may benefit from government recognition or assistance.
Hey Ho, check out that guy over there. He used to be our mayor, and a good one at that, until the day he was heard to exclaim, “What a beautiful Christmas tree!” as he powered up the city’s holiday tree. Oh, so many groups were offended. The atheists claimed the mayor’s words proved just what they’d always suspected: that the holiday tree was really just a Christmas tree by another name. Suddenly the Muslims and Jews began complaining that none of their holy symbols had been treated to official recognition. It was the biggest controversy around here since the day it was decided that Quetzacotl was not subject to belief suppression laws simply because no one with a functioning intellect could possibly believe in it. It was a loophole that caught everyone off-guard. Later, that very same loophole was found to apply to some other goofy things, like Kwanzaa and Richard Robinson’s political advice.
“Wait a minute,” said HHH, “does that mean that if people stop believing in Christianity we could wind-up with a statue of Jesus in our parks?”
Hey, you’re not as dumb as your name. It sure does mean that. Jesus might even get back into the classroom—as an historical figure. But maybe that’s not so bad. These days the schools are desperate for subject matter. With belief-based topics outlawed, gone are gender studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, philosophy, most history classes, and all of psychology. As a matter of fact, except for courses in the Art Department, there’s hardly a cake class left for the dorm drunks and 13th graders.
“So tell me,” asked HHH, “since Absurdium has no national belief system, has secular purity improved its relations with other nations?”
Gosh no! You see, the people of every nation of the world believe in something, and since we can’t favor one belief over another, the great nation of Absurdium has been forced to cut-off diplomatic relations with all countries. No foreign aid, no treaties, nothing. We even had to say no to Cuba after it was realized that seven of its citizens still believe in communism.
“What about domestic issues? With the beliefs of no one group receiving favor, does Absurdium enjoy domestic tranquility?”
Are you kidding? We’ve had to resort to martial law in every one of our major cities. As soon as it was realized that equality is just a very lofty belief all hell broke loose. The requirement that everyone working for, or having a job with ties to, the government possess testable skills and abilities has proved to be a disaster. We have massive unemployment and the government has its hands tied because it can’t blame anything on white males.
“What?!?!?!” shouted Triple H in outrage.
Yeah, white guilt was tested for validity and then declared a belief. And with that ruling we knew we were sunk. Our people were simply not prepared to live without a pick-and-choose menu of officially-recognized beliefs. If it wasn’t for our neighbor’s lunacy, Absurdium would be just a memory.
“What are you talking about?” asked The H Man.
The loosely patrolled borders of the United States. Thankfully, we can count on a continued flow of Absurdi’s into America, a nation rich in beliefs. In fact, it is said that in America there are even some beliefs that the people in the big cities won’t accept; old fashioned beliefs such as starting out at the bottom, working hard every day, and absolute self-reliance. While it’s true we’ve gotten rid of a lot of parasites, we’ve lost some good people too—people who believe in themselves.
As a non-believer, the way I see it is that America has so many beliefs that the fact that it works at all is, well, unbelievable.
“Now that,” nodded Ho Ho Ho, “even I believe.”
Don’t pick on Bill Oriely he is one of the few men in the country with some common sense. The people that attack the relegious right are as prejudiced as they are. Let poeple have their little fantasies about relegion as long as it doesn’t invlove blowing people up.
It’s hard to know how to characterize FinFan’s posting at #18. It is both overblown ego-driven prognosticating and frivolous analysis.
Luckily it is unlilkely to scare many school children because his words will disappear into the maw of history reserved for wordy pronunciamentos, especially those not based on fact or logic.
These posts are getting a little heavy. Let’s keep it a local political blog.
While it’s the time to consider the “reason for the season”, I find some of Rich’s comments quite a bit uninformed. By the way, it was Plato who believed that politics is a subset of ethics. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, ethics is a subset of religious belief. The Founding Fathers were very much up on these ideas. The general public believes that ethical government cannot exit without a religious foundation, although most people don’t fully understand or are unable to express this view, particularly in our PC region/state. The connection between religion, public behavior and personal actions is wired into the minds and hearts of the typical citizen. That is why Ronny G’s personal and public behavior is so distasteful. For your 2006 reading list try Peter Kreefts “Christianity for Pagans.” Check out Kreefts’ book, it’s an eye and mind opener….
That’s absurb!
Rich,
My sins were much more serious than Ronnie G’s, but that was close to 2000 years ago.
Many of you have learned something about morality, ethics and honesty since that time. Ronnie G. never practiced what he preached. The stones are on the way…..
To TheSeason,
Let he who is without sin cast the first vote to oust Ronnie G.
Oh yeah, Dave Cortese—rock in hand, self-rightious indignation and an angry mob behind him.
Anybody recognize any other similarities?
I think that Ron G will like the gift coming from the SCCDA and Civil Grand Jury. Its not over until the fat mayor sings.
Rich,
Cast the first stone?
You were the one to link Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and their followers to the Nazi party and the KKK. It doesn’t get any more slanderous than that.
Please keep in mind this is SATIRE. The Mayor and City Council did not actually vote on this.