This story is the shizzle. (Is that how you spell that?) I was checking out Pewsitter and this story just jumped out at me. A community college after forbidding students from selling “Christmas trees” and demanding they call them “holiday trees.”
So after the college jumped ugly on the baby Jesus, the Alliance Defending Freedom is now pushing back. Don’t you think that one of the great changes in recent years is that faithful people can lawyer up with firms that deal with this kind of asshattery all the time.
A North Carolina community college has been accused of violating the First Amendment rights of students after they told a club they could not use the word “Christmas” to promote a Christmas tree sale.
“It’s ridiculous that anyone would have to think twice about using the word ‘Christmas’ as part of a Christmas tree sale,” said Matt Sharp, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom.
ADF sent a letter to officials at Western Piedmont Community College urging them to either reconsider their decision to censor the word “Christmas” – or else face a possible lawsuit.
College officials did not return multiple phone calls and email messages seeking comment.
The student club, called the BEST Society, was planning to sell the Christmas trees to raise money for Angel Tree, an organization that provides Christmas presents to children.
Club members followed college protocol and submitted forms to promote the sale. The proposed text read, “The BEST Society will be selling Christmas Trees…”
But when the announcement appeared on the college’s website and in other venues – it had been altered. Ever reference to “Christmas Trees” had been replaced with “holiday trees.”
Attorney Sharp said students immediately contacted the college’s community relations director to find out what happened.
The community relations director allegedly told the students, “We cannot market your trees in association solely with a Christian event.”
As a result of the change, the club began receiving complaints from the community – and some customers told the students they would not purchase trees because of the change in wording.
“Not only is it perfectly constitutional to use the word ‘Christmas,’ it is unconstitutional to prohibit use of it,” Sharp said. “This is another perfect example of the immense misunderstanding that far too many college officials have about what the First Amendment truly requires.”
Read more: http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/20200493/2012/11/27/college-says-students-cant-sell-christmas-trees#ixzz2DYNTNMI3
November 28, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Forcing people to call a Christmas tree a holiday is stupid because of the obvious: they are in fact Christmas trees. But there's something about this war on Christmas I never understood.
We're always told that the reason behind whitewashing Christmas is that some people could get offended. But what is it about Christmas that some people find offensive? We're always told that some people get offended, but they never tell us why. I suspect that it might be due to some people who insist on taking issue with all that is right in the world. I hope I'm wrong.
November 28, 2012 at 11:55 pm
The irony is that almost all American non-Christians do celebrate Christmas, anyway. They call it Christmas among themselves. And it's been a long time since I heard anyone complain about Christmas decorations, trees, or greetings, if I ever have. The people who say Christmas offends them represent a very tiny percentage of the country.
November 29, 2012 at 12:25 am
Being offended is a personal opinion that ought not be imposed on everybody. Insurance companies called hurricane Sandy an “act of God”. Volcanoes in Ecuador, New Zealand and Hawaii are melting the permafrost to bring about a Great Flood. Jesus Christ is the greatest act of God. Some useful idiots want to impose upon us, tax us and deny us as though they could prevent an act of God. Let them see to their own house first.
November 29, 2012 at 1:25 am
In parts of Germany and eastern France, the fir-tree-inside-the-house holiday was, at least through about the 1920s, Corpus Christi, not Christmas, so maybe that's what they mean by "holiday tree".
November 29, 2012 at 11:58 am
@SF : "They" mean to irradicate any sense of the human being's soul to make property of the state, beasts of burden, taxpayers without souls to encumber their agenda, of us. Hitler did not invent Nazism, not Stalin nor Marx communism. Hitler extracted from the people their unexamined will to be "Superman" and used the people to gain status, same with Stalin, and Marx and Herod. Fools all. Hitler gave his people what they wanted at the price of their souls. America is giving the atheists what they want at the price of our souls.