ADN

Seattle airport removes Christmas trees to avoid lawsuit




SEATAC, Washington (AP) -- All nine Christmas trees have been removed from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport instead of adding a giant Jewish menorah to the holiday display as a rabbi had requested.

Maintenance workers boxed up the trees during the graveyard shift early Saturday, when airport bosses believed few people would notice.

"We decided to take the trees down because we didn't want to be exclusive," said airport spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt. "We're trying to be thoughtful and respectful, and will review policies after the first of the year."

Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky, who made his request weeks ago, said he was appalled by the decision. He had hired a lawyer and threatened to sue if the Port of Seattle didn't add the menorah next to the trees, which had been festooned with red ribbons and bows.

"Everyone should have their spirit of the holiday. For many people the trees are the spirit of the holidays, and adding a menorah adds light to the season," said Bogomilsky, who works in Seattle at the regional headquarters for Chabad Lubavitch, a Jewish education foundation.

After consulting with lawyers, port staff believed that adding the menorah would have required adding symbols for other religions and cultures in the Northwest. The holidays are the busiest season at the airport, Betancourt said, and staff didn't have time to play cultural anthropologists.

Hanukkah begins this Friday at sundown.

"They've darkened the hall instead of turning the lights up," said Bogomilsky's lawyer, Harvey Grad. "There is a concern here that the Jewish community will be portrayed as the Grinch."

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Their trying to kill the Christmas Spirit in America with PC.

This Rabbi is totally bullshit. Channukah is NOT a Jewish High Holy Day. It is a FESTIVAL of victory over Antiocus IV. It is a day of cultural, NOT RELIGIOUS significance. It does not in ANY way compare to the American institution of the European holiday of Christmas, which is comemorative not indicative of the birth of the Christian Savior.

The symbol of the Channukiya Menora (their 8-branched candle stick) was invented to celebrate the oil lastign longer during the celebration, so the celebration is A MILITARY ONE that has an interesting anamoloy that was worked in as a "miracle" or sign of "the endurance" of Israel over her enemies. The Channukiya Menora is not even a religious instrument.

THE Menorah is. It has Six candles around a Seventh. IT IS NEVER USED TO COMMEMORATE CHANNUKAH.

A RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY like Christmas is not the same as a FOREIGN MILITARY CELEBRATION like Channukah, even if the victory is one in the history of America's allies.

The celebration was such: The Romans had prohibited the celebration of Sukkot, and the Jews were celebrating it now that the Romans were defeated. Thus the Jews were unable to celebrate Sukkot, which is a High Holy Day (the Day of Grapes, Figs and Pomegranates), and one you use the Menorah from the Temple for. But on Channukah, they were celebrating Sukkot late, and "Rededicating the Temple."

Besides, the 25 Kislev (the 25th day of the month of Kislev) is lit on the 15th of December, an hour before sunset. And no one is supposed to see the Channukiya Menorah before then.

This is a HORRIBLE disgrace to the American tradition of Christmas Trees; for it is on December 21 in the year 1821 (at Lancaster Pennsylvania) that the journal of Pennsylvania Dutchman Matthew Zahm gives the first written description of what the modern idea of a decorated Christmas Tree looks like, and it appears in the New World. That claim to decorating the tree as it is well known now is undisputed as being in America before anywhere else.

I hate idiotic demands for religious equality. They usually indicate someone not knowing their own damn religion.

I agree raum, and dammit, I wish you were in a position to tell these people this shit to their face....

I dont' have an article b/c I saw it on the news, but I guess they are keeping the Christmas trees up after all because the Rabbi said that he didn't want them taken down

QUOTE(trashtalkr @ Dec 13 2006, 12:39 AM) I dont' have an article b/c I saw it on the news, but I guess they are keeping the Christmas trees up after all because the Rabbi said that he didn't want them taken down

correct, sir! http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/read ... 269&Disp=3

but this is disturbing: QUOTEPort spokesman Bob Parker said "we look forward to sitting down after the first of the year with not only Rabbi Bogomilsky but others as well, and finding ways to make sure there's an appropriate winter holiday representation for all faiths. We want to find out a way to celebrate the winter holidays that is sensitive to all faiths."

sensitive to all faiths??? ARGH! Decorating a tree is a PAGAN custom that was TOLERATED by Christians. if anything, it shows a TOLERANCE in itself. If this happens, I DEMAND MARDI GRAS BE CELEBRATED AS RAMADAN WILL BE. It is my right to carry NON-GLASS alchoholic containers in public, and not just when i make a pilgrimage to New Orleans. Furthermore, "Mother's Day" should for now on be called "Feminine-identified parent rolemodel or guardian day" because sometimes Billy has a second daddy for a mommy.

Happy Bottle Day,
raum

Posted from: http://ripolicyanalysis.org/Politically ... idays.html (because the original author says it so well)...

Up to now, I haven't paid much attention to the worries expressed by some fundamentalist Christians about alleged efforts by "secular humanists" to "de-Christianize" the United States. Frankly, these assertions seemed a little too far "out there" for me. However, following the rash of recent news reports about zealous actions to completely separate Christmas from anything funded with tax dollars, I'm beginning to wonder. (My favorite outrageous story was about the boy who was sent home from his school holiday party because he wore a Santa Claus costume, which, after all, derived from St. Nicholas).

I think the time has come for us to insist that the people who advocate these radically secular positions have the courage of their convictions, and follow them to their logical conclusion. Obviously, the first step in this direction should be the introduction of legislation eliminating Christmas as a federal holiday. While they're at it, they should also demand the elimination of Martin Luther King Day. After all, he was an ordained minister, and ended his "I Have A Dream" speech with the words "When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"

Unfortunately, Presidents Day will also have to go. George Washington noted in his first inaugural address that "it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure my self that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either." As for Abraham Lincoln, we can't overlook his words in the Emancipation Proclamation: "Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." Neither of these Presidents, great though they were, passes today's "
strictly secular" test of political correctness. That means Presidents Day is out.

Well what about Memorial Day, then? Hmm, all those war dead in cemeteries, marked solemnly by row after row of crosses and Stars of David. That simply won't do. This federal holiday will also have to go.

This brings us to Independence Day. What can you say about a holiday that celebrates a Declaration that includes the following politically incorrect language: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Sorry, but this one doesn't pass muster either.

On to Labor Day. This one stays. As the Department of Labor notes on its website, "The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday ¢¢¬¢‚¬ a street parade to exhibit to the public the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations." What's not to like about a holiday with no religious connotations, and an underlying theme of class war?

Next up on the list is Columbus Day. Though its religious connections are relatively weak, no self-respecting secular multiculturalist would object to getting rid of this one. Nor would Leif Erikson's fans. This is an easy call: Columbus Day is definitely out.

What about Veterans Day? To begin with, there is that awkward saying about there being no atheists in foxholes. But more important, the original 1926 law making it a federal holiday noted that "it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of [Armistice Day] should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations." I'm afraid it also must go.

And what can you say about Thanksgiving? Celebrating a bunch of religious extremists thanking God for helping them to survive their first year in the New World? Are you kidding? This holiday is obviously too politically incorrect to pass muster under the new rules.

But, lest you get too depressed, New Year's Day also will remain a holiday, since it seems inoffensive according to every measure of political correctness I could find. In sum, if taken to its conclusion, the logic of radical secularism should leave us with just two federal holidays instead of the present ten. But that's a small price to pay for ridding our public life of all those awful references to faith and religion , isn't it?

What kicks me most is that the Christmas tree is NOT a religious symbol at all. It has no actual connection as a religious icon for the birth of Christ.

Wait a minute.... wasn't the manger built out of old discarded christmas trees that hadn't made it to the landfill to be chipped into mulch yet...????