I feel offended by holiday greetings... - Page 5

Hasty pudding? with or without the Harvard version?

I think this mother would disagree with you assessment. The very word Christmas is not secular. That is why it is no longer "Christmas Break" but Winter Break.

You show the problem with this whole line of thinking which is that it certain actions become acceptable or not based off nothing more than the feelings of one party. No one is completely objective. You as a party would have no problem with White Christmas. Another party would object because of the word Christmas. They wouldn't stop until Jingle Bells was sung since it contains no holiday references of any sort. Perhaps they wouldn't even stop there since Jingle Bells was written by a minister.

The only way something can be truly objectively secular is to take a humanist naturalist perspective which means no religion, no magic (ie no Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, etc.) nothing but singing about objects. (Dreidle) Obviously most people draw their circle of tolerance a little wider than that. But we aren't talking about what most people would do. We are talking about what happens to the celebrations of most people when a small minority get upset.


You've yet to convince me or probably anyone how throwing out certain views and beliefs is "inclusive." Inclusive means being comprehensive, or taking a wide scope. You narrow what can be celebrated and call that inclusive. What you really should admit is that you are using the word inclusive to attempt to allow parties to be exclusive under the motivation of being free from being offended.


Nonsense. What is so silly about your view is it assumes that you bring the parties together and that the past, present and future remain static snapshots. No where in that article or in many similar circumstances have the Christmas or Christian parties attempted to control how the other parties and their cultures are celebrated or dictate terms to them.

Even in this instance the Jewish parents were not told that their children HAD to sing these songs. They were never told that the PTO was unwilling to include more or clearly religious Jewish songs. That would be stepping on toes. Instead they wanted certain types of songs simply removed. That is akin to cutting off the toes.


Nonsense. As I said this is cutting off the toes to avoid stepping on them. It is clear these parents were simply scared that their children were being exposed to gentile culture and they would not have a nearby Jewish community to go back to and reaffirm their Jewish traditions. When they realized their children had no problems with certain actions, were begging for certain future actions they probably began to imagine their children being invited to the homes of their peers. They imagine their children starting to have crushes on and deep friendships with gentiles.

None of this is clearly acceptable to them and so they move their children to somewhere where they their influence can be controlled. It is no different than when some white parents realize their child's best friends are black or hispanic and then they suddenly have "white flight" to the suburbs.


Obviously what they did request is for the continuance of their small minority of songs within the general celebration.

What is hysterical about hatred is how similar the patterns are with thoughts. With racism in the U.S. we had the one drop rule for blood and being black. Just one drop of blood and you were black and could have hatred practiced against you. It is clear the same is true of people who hate religion. Just one song, and the whole event is religious and offensive. There clearly is no context.


Scratch both. Obviously there are Christian parents who are upset about the whole secularization and Santa thing. But the reality is that life is not a snapshot and things change. I'm sure once upon a time the English and German parents were cursing the local Dutch children and their damn belief in Sinter Klaas. Perhaps people still should be offended with Santa Claus but are ignorant (just as these Jewish parents were) and have forgotten he is based off Saint Nicholas, a Catholic saint.

Tell me again how Santa Claus can be secular when he is based off a saint? Are these Jewish parents offended because they know who Jesus is or because they do not know who Saint Nicholas happens to be? When they do learn, can they declare the song "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" to be religious and demand it be removed?

With Christmas it isn't really that things are secular so much as that the influences are religious and have been forgotten. Jingle Bells was written by a minister. Santa Claus is based off Saint Nicholas, etc. etc. You cannot truly take religion out and be celebrating it.


The reality is that people have always used their community institutions for these purposes. What has changed is that over time people have been willing to try moving outside ethnic enclaves and begun interacting with each other. The institutions are trying to adapt but some parties prefer complete removal to adaptation. A hundred years ago it was likely that the school and church were in fact the same building and no one though anything much about the actual pastor coming into the church/school and running the actual celebration.

Note again the experience of the mother/author....

Growing up in a tightly knit Orthodox community in New Jersey, I attended Jewish day schools and Jewish camps and was active in Jewish youth movements, as insulated from the Gentile world as anyone could possibly be.

It is likely that if that mother traveled back to the same community she grew up in today. It would probably be part something other than Jewish, perhaps part Puerto Rican and part Ukranian. The same local resources are now likely being used by all additional parties. Even if this hasn't happened it is clear that many more influences are going to be competing for the attention of her children. Like all parents, they wish they could control them but often you cannot. Your children are independently thinking humans and we ultimately cannot control who they love, what religion they practice, what they do with their lives. Many parents hope their early indoctrination creates similar beliefs and actions to their own but that is no guarantee.

Her choice was first to try to control everyone else. When she could not do that her second choice was to try to run to another school where more people would hopefully, certainly no guarantee, think like and choose like her. Ultimately however the only way to avoid Gentile influences is to probably go back Israel. Even there perhaps traditionalists are bemoaning modernism.


Unknown faiths, they were simply doing as they had always done. I really don't think you would feel any better if they started acting and treating someone differently because they are Jewish.

As a teacher we deal with parents all the time who do not want their children to encounter certain information or influences. However we do not DEFAULT into a type of thinking that would say because child is X, we must exclude them in Y manner.

If I were to teach the class Feliz Navidad in an attempt to be inclusive, should I automatically assume that anyone who doesn't speak Spanish should be excluded from the song? That is nonsense. You give people the freedom to pick and choose. These parents were horrified because their children never chose. I think it fine that they delude themselves by believing they didn't understand what they were doing or singing. However kids are awfully smart and the reality is likely that the kids didn't care or chose not to say anything on purpose and the parents were horrified.

It is no different than a white parent being horrified when their child likes that N.W.A. CD or when a Christian parent is terrified that their child is singing Candy by Mandy Moore and has no ideal to what it is eluding.


You consider it indoctrination. The reality is that it is simply a continuation of what people have previously done and now there are simply new parties experiencing it.


It isn't impossible at all if you limit it to parties who are present. The two parties who are present are Christian and Jewish. We can other parties as they move into the community.


Sorry the street doesn't run both ways.


You show the conundrum within your own attempted thought right there. Attempting to get your own perspective into the school IS NOT THE SAME as attempting to avoid or exclude perspectives that are not your own.


That isn't having it both ways. I can care about a parents perspective and attempt to accomodate it. What I cannot do is insure it will be the only influence or perspective their child encounters.


Insults are the realm of small minds.


Yet you previously endorsed White Christmas and supposedly secular songs about Santa Claus earlier in this discussion. Obviously those were simply ruses and prove what I stated that it is impossible to celebrate Christmas truly free of religious influences.

Also most teachers would likely attempt to deflect such information to the parental background. It would be much more likely that a child would ask for information rather than the teacher simply volunteering it.


That is not shocking to me at all. What is shocking to me is that she did not want Christian children to say Christian prayers and was not content to merely have her own children exclude themselves from such activities. She reflects this in her own writing...

The day Tamar told her classmates she was leaving the school, I encountered the father of a classmate of hers, a reverend of a local Lutheran congregation. "Why not?" he asked, when I said we did not feel religious songs should be sung in American public schools, in response to his queries about our decision to pull Tamar out. "I think it's intolerant to demand that Christians not be able to sing their songs."


What this mother demanded was not the choice to not participate which is what you exercised. She demanded the right to not be uncomfortable. That is not a right you exercised nor would it be reasonable.


It does not say anywhere in her own writing that the children were forced to learn these songs. If the dreidle were an attempt at inclusion and deemed a bad attempt, then I am sure the school and community were open to better attempts at inclusion.

Now as both a teacher (a good one regardless of what you think) and as both a parent, I have a lot of insight into what the backstory often is in such cases. A child is a parents most precious possession and is often where they will show the most bias and irrationality. I really find it very hard to believe these children had no ideal about what they were singing. It sounds like a classic type of denial about the fact that their own children simply wanted to be part of the gentile crowd.

I've seen it a thousand times from "my Johnny would never listen to a CD with words like that" to whatever else you care to spin it to. They all amount to the child not being responsible for their own behavior and instead it is those evil outside influences. My kid isn't this.. it is that kid, that teacher, that CD, that whatever that made them this way.


Nonsense. She asked for all parties not to do this, not just her own children. That is intolerance and hate. If you asked for freedom from being uncomfortable in the Catholic church and told the people there they shouldn't say Jesus because it made you feel that way, that is your own intolerance. Instead they simply allowed you to respectfully observe. That is tolerance being practiced by both parties.

She did not ask for exclusion of her own children from activities that made them uncomfortable and inclusion of additional activities that made them comfortable. (Can they sit out these songs and can we add this more authentic song) Instead she asked for all other parties to give up what made her uncomfortable.


You can say whatever you desire. The reality is that you deemed their attempts at inclusion to be a miserable failure. However they still show an earnest attempt. To say they would be open to a better attempt is a reasonable conclusion. To say that the intent was to exclude is not because otherwise even the bad attempt would not have occurred.


Inclusion of one culture does not mean suppression of another. As I stated earlier attempting to get your own perspective into the school IS NOT THE SAME as attempting to avoid or exclude perspectives that are not your own.


I don't have to consider it endearing. However I also don't have to assign it malicious intent which is what you have done. You seem to think the other parties put up the lights just so the five year old would beg and cause the discomfort. That is why you call it an attempt at indoctrination. You assign wrong intent to people merely exercising their own ideals and views.

Christians acting like Christians does not mean they are trying to get Jews to act like Christians. However it also doesn't stop some Jews from wanting to act that way either. That is the horrifying ideal that I encounter all the time with parents. "You mean I can't simply exclude all ideals I disagree with and that my ideals and beliefs are likely to be weighed by these independent thinkers called my children against the others they encounter." Yes Mom and Dad, sad but true.


Sorry if exclusion hurts. If hated black culture than every rap song would probably burn my soul. If I hated Jews then probably half of all stand up acts would burn my soul.

No one guarantees you the right to not be uncomfortable. This parent demanding all songs be removed is like you demanding all neighborhood lights be taken down just so your own feelings (soul burning) does not occur. If you cannot take the inclusion, then your choice is to exclude yourself.


While it can't guarantee that everything is correct it also doesn't prove a wrong intent. What it does mean though is that when your children do not have their souls burned by the Christmas lights that it wasn't an evil intent at indoctrination.

Children are the most wonderfully perplexing beings. We see ourselves in them. We think they are a little "us" and that is why parents so easily come unhinged. They are staring at this person they love, that is a part of them and thinking "how could this little part of me somehow not have their souls burned by Christmas lights."

It is rather unthinkable.


He probably got the ideal from ignorance. Children display plenty of it as do adults. How will the child learn about their ignorance now that the only Jewish influence in their lives has fled school and taken their (by the ignorant view of that child) crappy holiday with them?

On a side note, I've gone through something very similar with my own child just so you know. My very bright son reads at around a fourth grade level even though he is only six. He already had everything pretty much set up for him at our neighborhood school which was majority white. Everyone knew who he was, how bright he was, etc.

Instead we moved him to another school in town that was suffering white flight. They were introducing a dual-immersion language program where the instruction starts in K or 1st for 85% of the day in Spanish. He was guaranteed to be a minority ethnically. He has an incredible linguistic and reading advantage that now is pretty much gone. We took him from a school where we absolutely knew the educational background and cultural background of the parents, teachers and administration to a school where we could easily allow our biases to fill in our ignorance of their backgrounds.

Such things are hard. When my son has gotten in trouble a couple times, part of me as a biased parente truly wants to believe such things would not have happened if he were at that other school with those other kids. However I truly believe that the advantages, hopefully being bilingual, bilierate and even bicultural are something that will outweigh the short term concerns.

There are larger questions for sure. My child is Protestant (although at 6 all you really are is whatever your parents tell you you are) and likely 75% of the class is Catholic.(What happens when he gets invited to various events, dances, etc that are not at his church or religion?) His first crush was on a girl named Abish.(Is that even Spanish? What is that Indian?) Is he being excluded from certain birthday parties/events because the parents of the kids fear he doesn't know enough Spanish or fear the reality that his parents know hardly any at all?

All these changes are much harder than just going with what is already known or what I grew up with. Hell I'm the coach of my son's soccer team and I never even played it in any formal fashion while growing up.

The reality is that the world our children will grow up in is different from the one we grew up in. I can curse the changes and run away from them or make my peace with them and still try to bring about the best result for my child.

Nick

No there are numerous people with the view of that mother and they are encountered thousands of times. However if we can't agree on the one, what is the point of moving on to the trend.

Nick

So you agree then that a series of isolated incidents by people who are by no means representative of mainstream (or even generally accepted minority) opinions does not constitute an assault?

But my point about all of this still stands: this war on Christmas nonsense is not about a few nutjobs acting like assholes. It's about zealous Christians wanting to make moderate Christians more zealous.

Where did I state anything of that nature? The actions of one person can constitute an assault for example Michael Newdow and the Ninth Circuit with the Pledge decision.


I think you should try a bit harder.

Nick

Nick,

the fundamental flaw in all of your reasoning is that this was a public event coordinated by school officials and the religious songs that were sung were taught to children during school, which is a clear violation of the current view of prayer in school -- it is all right as long as it isn't taking curricular time. The parent is right, religious songs should not be taught in school, no matter what -- teaching requires that the children not know the song in advance, which given natural parent-to-child cultural exchange means the only ones learning it are those that didn't know it in advance, which in cases like these means the non-christian folk. There are ways of sharing cultures that do not require children to state the words Jesus is god or some such in school or out. Naturally, a teacher can ask that everyone bring something in or share a bit of their culture without trying to get everyone to repeat the songs or otherwise. That to mean is sharing. The teaching of religious songs (in a clearly inequitible manner to boot) is indoctrination no matter where you slice it.

Good ways of sharing culture: Class presentations, discussions.

Bad ways of sharing culture: Teaching children how to sing religious songs, reading prayers.

One is observational, and one is indoctrination.

Regardless, this parent could have done a number of things differently... even ask to come in to talk about the Jewish High Holy days which occur in september or october. See, that is exactly what my mother did, some other parents came to talk about menorahs and the cultural signifance of dreidles which really have nothing to do with the festival of hanukah...

If the PTO was all about sharing culture they would have asked the mother to suggest some songs.

One last thing, I find it sad, in more ways than one, that we can only be inclusive of cultures that are around us. Incoporate the Jews when they move into town. Incorporate the Shintos when they move into town... That in my heart of hearts is the wrong way of going about creating a multicultural understanding... And you know it too...

Try a bit harder at what? Countering imaginary claims? Countering charges for which no evidence whatsoever is offered?

The very large logical leap, that learning and singing a song is the same as a prayer is yours alone. You are welcome to cite any case where singing a song was found to be unconstitutional.

The rest of your post is a justification for this large logical leap. It isn't worth dealing with until you come to realize that no court has held that a song is a prayer.

Nick

You know I can't find a list of people who claim to be against the war in Iraq, so no one must be against it. Additionally Cindy Sheehan is really just a ruse to make moderate war supporters into zealous war supporters.

If you tell me I need to support this assertion, I'll refer you to the nice bit of reasoning above.

Nick

Strange. I can find lots of lists.


Considering that there are lists and lists of people who have volunteered to make their disapproval of the Iraq war public, this second part doesn't follow. But anyway, it's another analogy and we'll wind up arguing over whether the Iraq war is like Christmas.

And yet for some reason, you can't take the religion out of the song?

Nick, either the song is religious (as you say it is) or it's not.

Not only my logical leap... it's also yours.

Edit: According to most (christian) sites I just scanned, people consider Christmas Carols to be part of the worship of Jesus.

There is a reason why both of us think that these carol's constitute religious expressions, they do... but more than that these songs are the modern equivalent of psalms, and are equivalently religious prayers.

My contention was never that songs could not be religious. Rather your leap was that a religious song is a prayer which has been ruled against as being unconstitutional.

That contention is not backed by the facts. You are welcome to attempt to prove it.

Nick

That also turns up plenty of links that are certainly not petitions or lists.


You are probably right. So as a result you should probably address specific instances like this one I have mentioned instead of just dismissing it as fabricated.

Nick

And I'm sure many things that are completely unrelated to Iraq. But we're getting off-track, already.


Huh? One of us just out-clevered the other, Nick, and honest-to-god, I'm not sure which one of us it was.

Heh. Not backed by facts... tee hee hee...

Religious prayer is decided on a case by case basis, however the precedent (established in 1962) is that prayer is a "solemn avowal of divine faith and supplication for the blessings of the Almighty." I think Silent Night (written no less by a priest in 1816) fits perfectly into that description...

That is a very nice topic sentence Mr. Hardy. Now please add some supporting statements.

Nick

http://www.inglewoodcarecentre.com/h...lent_night.htm


http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/silent.htm

http://www.silentnightmuseum.org/


Here's one school's take on 'Silent Night' which you're probably familiar with:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=47784



Yikes. In England we don't usually argue in this way. At least not during Christmas


What about suing for psychological damages? If I hear you say you're painfully familiar with the lyrics to Silent Night: what does this mean? Is it as dangerous as drugs, illicit prostitution of children? Part of living in a multi-cultural society requires having a mental filter to exclude what a person feels is unwarranted in their life. I don't follow your reasoning, as useful as it is to have anti-Christian sentiment, ranting about something which a person is psychologically locked into constitutes having an issue rather than an open mind.

Thanks, Justin.

No Problem!

Happy Christmas!!

ACK! I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SAY THAT!

Errr...and happy Christmas to you too Midwinter!! In-a- non-camp-non-homosexual-huggy-sort-of,-neutral-stand-offish-
English-kind-of-post-Austen-emotionally-inhibited-manner- -devoid-of-all-all-rampant-fundamentalist-religious- -connotations-and-intentions-although-the-heartfelt-connection- with-something-deep-and-spiritually-unsaid-goes-without-the-trappings -of-the-pansy fir-tree-and-baubles. You know the kind.

of course.

Happy Christmas to you too...

And Happy New Year.

Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.

That pretty much sums up an avowel of Jesus-cum-God.

You could've just said "Hugh Grant" and that would've covered it .

Stop ducking this please. It is a little demeaning to you. Simply cite a court case, even an article mentioning a court case, hell anything where a religious song was either a)found to be a state sponsored endorsement of religion or b) anything showing that a judge/government official has stated that they believe Silent Night or even any other religious song constitutes a prayer.

I'm trying to give you the most latitude possible now cough up something.

Nick

I am telling you Nick. The precedent already exists for such declarations... Regardless of whether a case has been brought or not.

Or do you not understand how the Judicial system works in the US?

Apparently, according to this case , it is possible that in the particular case of the woman in pennsylvania, there could be grounds for a free exercise violation if (and this is an unknown) the chorus was required to learn all of the songs, regardless of the intentionality of the actions. That is, if the child was coerced, via grades or otherwise, then it is a clear violation of his Free exercise right...

But since the parent does not say one way or another, it is all speculation...

And I don't really care to speculate...

First and foremost thank you for bringing something to the discussion. It is very much appreciated.

Secondly though, the court ruled againt the plaintiff initially and on appeal of said matters.

Nick

But if you actually wade through the decision the reasons for their rejection of some of this young lady's claims was because her lawyer did not show substantive evidence that she was coerced into signing the songs, hence the rejection of her claim that this was an imposition on her free practice rights.

The rest of the decision is neither here nor there; I can argue until I am blue in the face about the fact that the establishment interpretation now is far too lenient on the government, basically they assume the government didn't do anything wrong and go with it if there can be (not are) secular reasons for doing something or other... That and we get into the intention argument you were having in the panda trial thread.

But whatever, it is an interesting piece of case law, and since the woman was allowed a choice in the matter, I agree with the final decision, however villanous the other parties might have acted...

But with or without prostitute flanking and buttressing my left side and argument?

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/10982004.htm

I was thinking more of Grant playing Edward Ferrars or maybe him in Love, Actually. You know, that awkward, halting, stand-off-ish awkward kind of thing.

I did wade through the decision and they did in fact find that applying the Lemon test that there was a secular purpose in using religious choral music.

Nick

Lemon is the establishment clause test.

The free practice test is less well defined, but basically the plantiffs way out could have been by showing that she was coerced into singing the songs. She wasn't so she lost.

I know the one. Ever since then, Americans think all Englishmen are Girliemen.

I was always very happy dodging-thrusting-diving in and out of banter before Hugh Grant came along and made us all feel even more inept at what we do very badly.

It's always funny of course hearing Grant find it 'not funny' when a parody of his parody in his insensible role as Master Ferrars making sense of sensibility takes place outside Sunset Boulevard.

Emma Thompson as Jane probably knew that behind the decorum was a few dodgy dealings. Of course, nothing that the prim and proper Englishman would admit to of course. Ahem.

I could have sworn the initial issue was whether a song constituted a prayer and not whether one is forced to sing.

Nick

You know, I don't know about that. I suspect that Americans used to think of Englishmen as girliemen before that (with the exception of soccer hooligans and world's strongest man competitions), but that after Grant came along, Americans tend to think of Englishmen as just awkward and, um, proper.

Personally, I've never met an Englishman like that (or like Frank Doel in 84 Charing Cross Road), although I know they exist. There was one fellow in line at the British Library this summer who got all in a tizzy because he'd pre-ordered his documents and they weren't there waiting on him. He kept going on and on about how "I've come a very long way," and I kept thinking about that bit of Bill Bryson's where he says that Americans will routinely drive distances for a taco that English people would consider worthy of a weekend outing.


Heh. "Balls? Had they balls?!"

Hmmm. That's a good point.

Any Europeans I know consider my ilk and type to have a bizarre set of social skills which hang as loosely as Judas Iscariot's guilt around his neck. (Sorry - just watched The Passion of Christ' by Mel Gibson whilst supping on chicken soup. The bloody flagellating is really off-putting. It kept on making me think how awful being a battery hen must be. It was awful. I'll have to go organic now. A lot of people kept on raving about this film so I decided to watch it (long last). Oh. That's Easter. Not Christmas.

Anyhows, the World's Strongest Man Competition had its own English spin off for years (pre-Grantian era). Regional T.V. hosted a series showing a local variation of this involving nude men parading their wares in front of a female jury. This was before the closet opened in the lion and the witch. Or was that the wardrobe? Before coming out and all that. It's funny reading a history of England during the Eighties....


Cripes. I'm going to keep a low profile from now on.

The times I've been to the British Library, my European cafe-people watching sensibilities get the better of me. Sometimes the academics there are so tautly rigid they also seem to be suffering from a variant of an Autistic Disorder.
It is a national library, and a lot of the provincial profs. don't have a clue how inept British institutions actually operate. I have friends like that who "don't do queues". They refuse to stand in a queue and wait. I think it's like having a mini-temper tantrum - "If I must, then I won't" and going off to sulk, feigning indifference.

Bill Bryson is great. Have you seen the type of driving in England?? Those women in 4x4s are femmes fatales. Mobile phone in one hand, lipstick and mirror in the other ratcheting up speed towards junctions. Our roads are narrow and windy and driving is not as luxurious or comfortable as cruising an American straight road to Tacky Hell! (Actually I remember this chain fondly - when I came to America when I was 19, I didn't know what a burrito was). I fit that stereotype - I hate driving anywhere in my sports car in England, particularly when there are drivers like that around. I'd rather stay home and drink chicken soup.



To have = possessive verb. English men are generally good at possessing things. Letting go is another matter.

To admit = expressive verb. To admit the dodgy dealings would be to concede a failure, rather than showing that one had balls! If you get the dodgy logic behind the dodgy dealings that.

Now back to the second disc of the flagellation. This is really going to knock me out if I don't fall asleep first..

First, I made the point a long time ago that if the child was forced to sing the songs then it was a violation of his right to free practice...

Second, the discussion that ensued led us to the point that these Christmas songs do constitute a religious statement (prayer). Clearly the courts have no problem with saying that they are prayers, however because of secular arguments for using this religious speech in a classroom setting they are not establishment of religion if there are . In fact, the court wouldn't have to argue this way if it wasn't considered a prayer.

Regardless, we are now down to an unknown in this case: was the child coerced?

And again, I don't care to speculate.

I think you've gone off the deep end.

Nick

And so it was...

Have a good new year trumpt!