Posted on 11/15/2007 5:00:23 PM PST by CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC
Poll question at: http://coloradoan.com/ reads:
"Do you agree with the recommendations by the [neo-grinches on the] Fort Collins holiday display task force?"
As of now, it's 89% against, w/ 2100 votes. Yay!
Ages ago in Ft Collins, they stripped religion or any hint of it from public C***stmas displays: no Nativities or Stars of Bethlehem, the word "C****tmas" replaced with "Holidays" and so on. And recently, all or most of the main downtown tree display (Oak St Plaza) switched from colored lights to all-white.
But that's still not enough. All remaining reminders of C****tmas must go! Or else!
The Grinch Squad, aka Holiday Display Task Force, (more on their membership below) was appointed by our City Council to come up with recommendations, and they discovered, to their disgust, that some trees still had colored lights and some wreaths still had red ribbons and even ornaments on them. Horrors to Betsy!
Yes, these are the same people you heard about on O'Reilly. Get rid of all outdoor colored lights, all red ribbons on wreaths, any ornaments on trees or wreaths, and so on, ad nauseum.
The local paper's article about our burg becoming national news - mostly centering on the O'Reilly show - mentioned one dissenting opinion coming from a CSU campus priest, who was "one of two clergy members on the [15 member] task force". The sole other clergy member, a Protestant who apparently was carefully chosen to be a good representative of all Protestants in our town, did not agree with the priest, and was most enthusiastic about the task force's report. He's the pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church.
SAY WHAT????? This is the same tiny far-left church that strings their banner about once a month on the other side of the street from our weekly pro-troop rally. I.e. the antiBush, antiCheney, antiwar side of the street. The same church that regularly supplies pro-homosexual agenda quotes, pro-abortion opinions and the like, to local reporters who pretend to want to know what the local Christian viewpoint is on any issue. And this in a city containing many evangelical churches, including several mega-churches??
As a Protestant, I somehow don't feel well represented by this clergyman. Can I instead designate the Catholic priest to be my spokesman? Is that allowed? Pretty please?
The leftist spin on this is that the entire story is false. It's all the fault of the local paper getting the story completely wrong. Why, didn't you hear? The paper issued a front page correction on Nov 6. End of story. O'Reilly and the rest of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy refuse to correct this false story. Go away folks. It's all a vicious rumor. It never happened. Bury it at snopes.com and let's all MoveOn together.
No kidding?? I looked up that Nov 6 correction, and it's only regarding two very minor points, so most of the story is still true! The only things the paper got wrong:
A) They forgot to mention that colored lights and decorated wreaths are only to be stripped from OUTSIDE displays, ie from the remaining trees at Oak St Plaza, and the outside of all city buildings including the one on the police building's roof. Colored lights might still be allowed on the INSIDES of city buildings, but only under strict conditions. Employees can't just go and decorate their areas on their own initiative, but must get official permission from building managers, who in turn will be operating under guidelines that will be written by ....... nobody knows who, yet.
B) At the Ft. Collins Museum, on an out of the way minor street, several blocks away from the main drag, well out of view of almost all drivers, a multicultural display that must be inclusive of all faiths, non-faiths, pseudo-faiths and fake faiths, will be allowed to include a tree with multi-colored lights. So you see folks, the false story about the Grinches stealing Christmas was 100% wrong! (plus or minus 95%). Other suggestions from a Task Force member on what to include in this display: Mitten Trees.
WHUTTTT?? "Mitten Trees"? Am I the only one who's never heard of these? Am I so far removed from the center norm of Modern American Cultural Diversity that I am wholly ignorant of just what the !@#%$^*() a Mitten Tree is? Please forgive me for my abject ignorance, fellow citizens!
Another thing gnawing at me was that every single article in the local city newspaper and various local free papers described the membership of the 15-person task force in glowing terms as a wonderful example of achieving a completely fair representation of the city's residents as a whole. (Example: "comprised of 15 citizens from a variety of faiths and organizations").
Something smelled fishy about this, especially after hearing the identity of the sole Protestant clergyman in the group. So I decided to look up their webpage and find out who all was on it.
Here you go folks. Take a look for yourselves. Witness this stellar example of a group chosen to well represent all faiths and all opinions in our city (in proper proportion to the faiths and political opinions of all city residents, I'm assuming?):
And then of course I already mentioned the leftist Protestant clergyman and the sole dissenting voice quoted so far in the media - the priest.
What I don't understand is, how on earth, in their strenuous effort to equally represent all citizen's viewpoints, did they ever let a dissenting opinion in, in the form of that priest? Speculation: They suspected that most of the local priests at the big congregations are culturally conservative (which is why they're big), and so they crossed their fingers and hoped that this priest at a small campus chapel, spending his days immersed in the leftist environment at CSU, might be more sympathetic to their Grinchish plans.
The viewpoints of 4 of the remaining 5 members are hard to guess from their listed affiliations, and from the fact they've issued no public statements.
One represents an HOA (huh?) and one represents a construction company (huh again?) and happens to be a Democrat. Two are listed as "Non-affiliated," and googling them shows one to be in the CSU IT department, and the other an elderly lady who sits on other boards such as the "Aging Advisory Council". I have no idea where they stand.
The remaining member - one Arlyn Kettner - has his affiliation listed as Faith E. Free Church, a large evangelical Protestant church. He's a church employee - its business manager, to be exact. I called a friend who's also a member there, and he told me that Arlyn and the priest tried hard to get the other task force members to do something sane, something that wouldn't embarrass our city in front of the world.
They apparently failed.
Well, at least the City Council hasn't yet voted on the Grinch Squad's recommendations. Public CC hearings on the issue are on Tuesday night.
Local ping
Send these anti-Christian, anti-American bastards to Cuba. And let’s see how they make out there.
as of now -
What do you think?
Do you agree with the recommendations by the Fort Collins holiday display task force?
Yes 11.3%
No 88.7%
Total Votes: 2104
FREEP THIS POLL ***PING!*** FRmail me if you want to be added or removed from the Fearless Poll-Freeping Freepers Ping list. And be sure to ping me to any polls that need Freepin', if I miss them. (looks like a medium volume list) (gordongekko909, founder of the pinglist, stays on the list until his ghost signs up for the list)
I don’t think they should call them “trees.” It’s lots less offensive to call them “Sylvan-Americans.”
Come on over, I crossed the Tiber three years ago and have not regretted it for one minute.
Got your speech ready????
I plan to go and speak. Any other N. Colo Freepers interested?
At past meetings that attracted large crowds due to a single contentious issue on the agenda that night, I’ve seen them move the “big issue” up to be first on the agenda, so that 98% of the attendees can go home early, while the Council moves on to the other usual boring mundane things they discuss at these meetings.
Five Jews on a fifteen person committee? So Fort Collins is 33 percent Jewish? I never knew!!!
(sarcasm)
Poll FReeped by new Castle Rock resident. Reporting for FReeping duty.
Christmas is winning.
Ha-ha.
Oh, that oughta be a lot of fun!
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