The ACLU - pros and cons

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Butterbeer

Nor do i accept Bj's view that it is a defence of liberty...

the question is not about what the individual does... you can put whatever you like on your front lawn... a nativity scene, a menorah, a huge buddha, it's up to you

the same is true if you owned your own business... you could choose to display christian, and only christian, symbols

"liberty" comes into the picture when we talk about the government or things that receive tax money... every citizen has the right to question where his tax money goes... and whether intentional or not, displaying one kind of religious image either exclusively, or to an excessively greater degree than another, implies that that religion is more important to the government... which is not true if you read our constitution

one could even argue, as i sometimes feel, that considering all the needs in our country, our goverment should not be spending money on decorations period... there are much better places for this money to go

the ACLU is not attacking your personal freedom of speech, it is questioning whether certain practices of our government reflect the collective view of all our citizens

[Butterbeer]

mc beastie again?

^^ try posting to see if it kills the bug...

edit** yes, can see the post above now

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

the ACLU is not attacking your personal freedom of speech, it is questioning whether certain practices of our government reflect the collective view of all our citizens

I doubt that any government policy that has ever been selected has reflected the view of all our citizens. The government has never claimed that any of its policies reflect the collective view of all our citizens, either. You're making the case very effectively that the ACLU is a hopeless waste of time .

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I doubt that any government policy that has ever been selected has reflected the view of all our citizens. The government has never claimed that any of its policies reflect the collective view of all our citizens, either. You're making the case very effectively that the ACLU is a hopeless waste of time .

our government certainly tries to, or at the very least respect all views... sometimes it makes compromises, but i ask that you, and others, look into the totality of the cases the ACLU has brought up over the years instead of just focusing on the ones you don't like

i'll ask you a question... if the white house didn't have a tree at all, or a menorah, or anything else, would it be the end of civilization as we know it?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

our government certainly tries to, or at the very least respect all views... sometimes it makes compromises, but i ask that you, and others, look into the totality of the cases the ACLU has brought up over the years instead of just focusing on the ones you don't like

i'll ask you a question... if the white house didn't have a tree at all, or a menorah, or anything else, would it be the end of civilization as we know it?

If someone strapped a piece of dynamite on Michaelangelo's David and blew it to smitherines, would that be the end of civilization? Not really. But it would be a terrible tragedy to society and culture. In the same way, if the White House and society in general stopped celebrating Christmas as Christmas, it would be devastating to our culture and would be a blatant, sharp division between America and its historical roots.

[Insidious Rex]

Its historical roots? Dont open up that trap Lief.

[Lief Erikson]

I don't follow.

Our historical roots are what make us what we are. Virtually every major speaker and person who has caused change in our country has been a firm believer in God. This goes for our Founding Fathers and most of our presidents. "God" is embedded in the roots of our society. Seeking to change public acknowledgment of this fact would be, when the logic is followed to its conclusion, to turn us into a society like France, which bans headscarves on the women[/revulsion]. For a town to ban nativity scenes in shop windows is obscene. If we are not permitted to acknowledge God publicly in society, we are rejecting cultural roots embedded in history that make us American.

[Lotesse]

That's what makes us American? Being Christian is what makes us American? Oh, Liefer, I SO beg to differ. Christianity is NOT what makes us American.

Oh - by the way, Thomas Paine, who wrote Give me liberty or give me death, and was one of THE most highly influential and important founding fathers, was NOT Christian. I'm quite sure that there are many other examples I can list off, but the point I'm trying to make is that this is NOT supposed to be a country with a state sanctioned, enforced religion, PERIOD. Not Christian, not Muslim, not Jewish, not Hindu.

[trolls' bane]

What's ACLU?

[Lotesse]

Look, read the thread you silly goose! ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU defends Americans' constitutional right to exercise religious beliefs or no religion at all, free from government promotion of faith-based doctrine or activities.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I don't follow.

Our historical roots are what make us what we are. Virtually every major speaker and person who has caused change in our country has been a firm believer in God. This goes for our Founding Fathers and most of our presidents. "God" is embedded in the roots of our society. Seeking to change public acknowledgment of this fact would be, when the logic is followed to its conclusion, to turn us into a society like France, which bans headscarves on the women[/revulsion]. For a town to ban nativity scenes in shop windows is obscene. If we are not permitted to acknowledge God publicly in society, we are rejecting cultural roots embedded in history that make us American.

allow me...

And despite some high-powered rhetoric—Fox News host John Gibson says in the subtitle of his book “The War on Christmas” that there is a “liberal plot to ban the sacred Christian holiday”—neither Gibson, nor anyone at the AFA, the Liberty Counsel, Lynn’s group or the ACLU, is aware of an attempt to halt religious observance of Christmas or to stop making it an official federal holiday. And the real irony, religious and academic scholars point out, is that Christmas is observed in one way or another by more Americans than at any point in the nation’s history; indeed, more than any nation at any time in history.

So Christmas is not being erased... On the contrary. Its stronger then ever.

And this notion that its in the "historical roots" of america... well...

And there is one problem with that pristine image of the American Ghost of Christmas Past, he and others say: It never quite existed. “White Christmas”—which became one of the best-selling songs of all time—was already lamenting a season “just like the ones I used to know” in 1939. The same year, entrepreneur Charles Howard opened one of the first Santa Claus schools, dismayed by the cynical crush of “bums, ham actors, and thousands of odd job men” who were cashing in by playing the man in red.

Confrontations over Christmas are as old as the day itself. The Bible mentions Christ’s birth in a manger, which brings the tradition of the star in the night, the three wise men and many others. But it was nearly 400 years after Christ died before church officials thought to make the date of birth a holiday. This was greatly complicated by the fact that no one knew the exact date. But in 395, church officials set it as Dec. 25, putting it amid a huge pagan festival in ancient Rome known as Saturnalia. The latter was a raucous celebration—lots of alcohol and sex—that church officials allowed to continue as a means of attracting converts.

“That made sure the holiday would be observed, but it gave up any real Christian control over it,” says Stephen Nissenbaum, author of “The Battle for Christmas.”

Across northern Europe, there were pagan celebrations that stemmed from the dark, fallow days of the winter solstice. As Christianity spread, the two often overlapped, even as Europeans began to settle America. The Puritans were horrified at the combination. Finding no mention of Dec. 25 in their Bibles, they banned the holiday as sacrilegious.

“People drank a lot, caroused in the street,” says Leigh Schmidt, professor of religion at Princeton University and author of “Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays.” “Puritans thought Christmas was the worst day in the year to preach Christ, because people showed up at church after imbibing a lot of rum.”

The founding fathers had no Santa Claus (Saint Nicholas, a minor European saint, did not morph into the current image of the gift-laden Santa Claus until the 1820s). There were no Christmas trees (a German import that didn’t take root until the 1840s). Dec. 25 wasn’t made a federal holiday under the first 17 American presidents (including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln). The holiday did not come until 1870, under Ulysses Grant, perhaps one of the least pious of presidents.

So this misconception that christmas is somehow intertwined with the foundation of america is erroneous at best and out right deception at worst. Christmas is a relatively modern notion that has been evolving CONSTANTLY and never existed in static form for hundreds of years before just now when certain people seem to think weve turned from the good old days.

As the decades passed, Christmas became a holiday that celebrated the values of home and hearth and family and generosity, not just a Christian rite. There was Santa and the magic of childhood, a particularly Victorian ideal, that went alongside the Christian underpinning.

By the early 1900s, when companies began to learn how much they could commercially exploit the Santa Claus magic (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer began life as a Montgomery Ward advertising gambit) the modern idea of Christmas was born.

So the concept of christmas being something other then a strictly christian holiday has been true for over a hundred years at least. This idea that suddenly we need to "take back christmas" is a joke and ignores history in my opinion.

[Lotesse]

What I don't understand is how the White House not celebrating a Christian Christmas is going to be "devastating to our culture," lief, and I DEFinitely do not think that it would be as horrible a theft from our WORLD culture as blowing up Michelangelo's David would be. What an oddball analogy. One is a Christ-based celebration, the other a priceless culturally irreplacable work of art that will last the next thousand some-odd years, barring being blown up by Christian radicals.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

That's what makes us American? Being Christian is what makes us American? Oh, Liefer, I SO beg to differ. Christianity is NOT what makes us American.

Oh - by the way, Thomas Paine, who wrote Give me liberty or give me death, and was one of THE most highly influential and important founding fathers, was NOT Christian. I'm quite sure that there are many other examples I can list off, but the point I'm trying to make is that this is NOT supposed to be a country with a state sanctioned, enforced religion, PERIOD. Not Christian, not Muslim, not Jewish, not Hindu.

Being Christian is not what makes us American. Whether we are Christian or not, all Americans have certain cultural roots that are, in part, tied to religion. If an American is going to have sex, Christian or not, the American will do it behind closed doors. This notion of privacy originally came from Israel, according to my college history professor. If we want to remove religion from society, might it also be appropriate to knock out this largely religious value? Much of our law and government are based on Judeo-Christian roots. The name of God is used in most of our major documents, and has been used by many of our major speakers. Thomas Paine was a Deist rather than a Christian, but he claimed that "God is a God of truth and justice." He too acknowledge God with much the same morals as the God Christians acknowlede, though he decisively rejected many essential elements of Christianity.

I definitely agree that there's not supposed to be a state religion. However, I also feel that religion is strongly entangled in our culture. Privacy is one example. Another example would be, I am told, that much of our law was forged on the principles of the Ten Commandments. Is extricating the Ten Commandments, therefore, desireable? It might be necessary, if we try to remove religion entirely from the state. What, then, happens to our law? Many of the truths that all Americans, Christians or otherwise, hold to, are entangled to some extent with religious values. Trying to slice religion out of public life, therefore, may be doing irrepairable damage to our culture. That's all I'm claiming.

Christmas is one tradition that Christians and non-Christians alike love, and which most non-Christians have said they prefer called "Christmas" rather than the meaningless term "festive". It's part of our culture, and a part of our culture, it should stay.

Trying to change our culture to cut out everything that smacks of religion is impossible and extremely undesireable.

[Butterbeer]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

the question is not about what the individual does... you can put whatever you like on your front lawn... a nativity scene, a menorah, a huge buddha, it's up to you

the same is true if you owned your own business... you could choose to display christian, and only christian, symbols

"liberty" comes into the picture when we talk about the government or things that receive tax money... every citizen has the right to question where his tax money goes... and whether intentional or not, displaying one kind of religious image either exclusively, or to an excessively greater degree than another, implies that that religion is more important to the government... which is not true if you read our constitution

one could even argue, as i sometimes feel, that considering all the needs in our country, our goverment should not be spending money on decorations period... there are much better places for this money to go

the ACLU is not attacking your personal freedom of speech, it is questioning whether certain practices of our government reflect the collective view of all our citizens

well, i know little about the ACLU - and i do not judge them on one issue - i suspect on many things i may probably agree with them or in general support their general aims - but let's be very clear this thread is not a thread about the ACLU good or bad, on balance of everything they do: it is specifically about ....*pause* .... *goes to top of page - ..er ... - anyway scrub that bit ... ..it's about them banning christmas! - *attempts to rally*

damn ..Rian has made it about all ACLU - (which i know nothing about) ..then wished to discuss specifically the banning of christmas - see how i highlighted that bit?

well, anyway - it is absurd to think on any one subject you can get EVERYONE to agree - ALL our citizens - that just will never happen - also was it not yourself or was it the gaffer, who argued that many for example muslims have absolutely no objection to christmas iconography - it Is a tradition, part of a culture and whether you view it as a religious or everyday thing, christmas is as much about, snow, lights, presents, family get togethers, a big meal, time off, a rest, old classic films, booze, etc as it is about jesus or whatever. Most of my muslim mates wil happily take the time off, have a biig nosh up on christmas day, even hum along to the odd carol, buy the family a present ... though they are not christians, it is just a part of the culture they live in and this part they enjoy - it need not be about god, but it is a freedom of religion, a freedom of life, a freedom of expresion, a freedom to connect generations together and maintain traditions as a mainstay of continuity in an ever smaller, faster, ever more disparate and unconnected violent world.

How does this defend not attack my civil liberties?

I suspect i probably would not agree with many of Rian's other gripes about this ACLU - but on this lunacy ... i do.

You should to my mind be clear in a distinction between whatever good work this organisation may do elsewhere - and this particluar ATTACK on civil liberties, by those supposedly defending it in OUR name.

you see...boil it all down to the core here: they are saying they will decide what may be called this or that, thay will decide what traditions, iconography, what rights, what language, what events or depictions, what associated thoughts and holidays should be called ...

THIS IS NOT CIVIL LIBERTY.

This is an oppressive agenda, effectively curtailing the social, cultural, religious, linguistical and family rights of the majority of the cutlure, in a tradition that's main aim (beyond commercialism) is peace to all men and peace on earth!

Run this logically then , if we object to christmas: we then have the totally unarguable right to complain about Diwlai, Ede, hannukah, etc etc ... where does it end? CND symbols? Peace doves? Pink LGB wrist bands?, medals of honour on old soldiers? National flags? Mosques? Gurdwaras? Jewish caps? Long beards? wearing a cross bracelet? Watching the simpsons? supporting or wearing a football club or shirt? Naming your child with a "christian" name?

Must we all be called non controversial numbers henceforth?

Shall we ban, david or peter, or simon or paul?

What of Ali or imam or raj or Gujinder or Vishal etc etc ...

there is just no good point to this and certainly no freedom or extension of civil liberties: it seems like double speak for communism in the name of civil freedom: a hammer to crack a non christmas brazil nut or walnut


to me this is clear: this attempts to restrict freedom and civil liberties: not uphold them.

Best, BB

[Lotesse]

BB, you're SO dramatic!!

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

What I don't understand is how the White House not celebrating a Christian Christmas is going to be "devastating to our culture," lief, and I DEFinitely do not think that it would be as horrible a theft from our WORLD culture as blowing up Michelangelo's David would be. What an oddball analogy. One is a Christ-based celebration, the other a priceless culturally irreplacable work of art that will last the next thousand some-odd years, barring being blown up by Christian radicals.

I have no problem with people celebrating Christmas as they see fit. Neither do I have a problem with the holiday continuing to evolve.

I see attempts by corporations, or groups such as the ACLU, to try to ban religion (such as the religious term "Christmas") from public places as very much out of line, however. I read an article recently, in which the writer complained, "why can't this minority be more tolerant of the majority?" I think there's a lot of validity to that question. Christmas is ingrained in our culture.

[Lotesse]

Very much out of line?? Oh, if there's a God then THANK GOD for the ACLU, who's credo is this: to preserve & protect

* Your First Amendment rights-freedom of speech, association and assembly. Freedom of the press, and freedom of religion supported by the strict separation of church and state.

* Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.

* Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.

* Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.

[Butterbeer]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

BB, you're SO dramatic!!

*Bows*

and you are so pretty! - kind of how i imagined you - have you the pic with the short hair though? i always thought of you with short, possibly spiky hair.

[Lotesse]

THANK you, BB! How sweet is that! I have short hair pix; I'll get around to posting one one of these days...

[Butterbeer]

* Your First Amendment rights-freedom of speech, association and assembly. Freedom of the press, and freedom of religion supported by the strict separation of church and state.

so, they should then defend the right to associate christmas with rudoplh or santa or snowmen, or it being about turkey or presents..or the teeny weeny cute lil' baby jesus, no?

* Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.

Equal treatment: thus the right to religion or the protection of traidtions or cultural icons or just plain the child-like enjoyment of christmas, no?

* Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.

fair treatment, includes being able to call christmas christmas, in the same way that civil liberties should be applied to ALL not taken away and eroded.

* Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.

nor, equally, unwarranted intrusion into your culture, language, traditions, way of life, or christmas pudding soaked in brandy.


Yes christmas evolves and has many many roots most of which were originally pagan - cool - the holly and the ivy - put your holly over door and window to protect against the dark spirits entering the house ... the yule log ...etc etc many many ... but how on earth is this defending our civil liberties whenin fact if flies in the face of them???

I just think the ACLU really shoot themsleves in the foor with this one.