Posted on 12/27/2013 12:00:41 PM PST by Kaslin
A group of 51 school children in Texas spent the week before Christmas making Christmas cards for veterans. According to the VA, the kids made a mistake by saying "Merry Christmas".
Fox News reports VA hospital refuses to accept 'Merry Christmas' cards.
Boys and girls at Grace Academy in Prosper, Tex., spent most of last Friday making homemade Christmas cards for bedridden veterans at the VA hospital in Dallas.
Fourth-grader Gracie Brown was especially proud of her card, hoping it would “make their day because their family might live far away, and they might not have somebody to celebrate Christmas with.”
Gracie’s card read, “Merry Christmas. Thank you for your service.” It also included an American flag.
But the bedridden veterans at the VA hospital will never get to see Gracie’s card. Nor will they see the cards made by 51 other students. That’s because the Christmas cards violated VA policy.
Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Institute said "Targeting the benevolent work of little children for censorship is disgusting. Do the Grinches in the administration of the VA really believe our bravest warriors need protection from the heartfelt well wishes of small children saying Merry Christmas?"
The cards will not be thrown away -- they are being shipped to Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio and to a private facility for veterans in Louisiana.
Offending Cards
The VA is protecting our soldiers from receiving "offensive" such as the following.
Also consider this image fom Breitbart Veterans Affairs Bans Christmas Cards to Troops over Religious Content.
Lack of Common Sense
Banning "Merry Christmas" has nothing to do with banning school prayer. It does have everything to do with lack of common sense.
Christmas is a day. It is also a national holiday. If one wants to assign religious meaning to the day, one can. If one wants to treat it like a national holiday with no religious overtones, one can do that too.
If the VA wanted to remove cards with "clear" religious messages such as "Christ Died for You", I would not have a problem with it. But, "Merry Christmas" is a ubiquitous phrase.
Christmas is December 25, every year, like it or not. And it's a national holiday, every year, like it or not.
Banning "Merry Christmas" is absurd.
You know what? This is a F*** *** moment. This is the moment where we find the actual people who physically denied the cards, and — using social media — make sure NO ONE EVER DOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN. Expose them. Publicize them. Let the WHOLE WORLD see who these people are. Shun them in every venue. Make their world change.
Please identify the VA hospital in question. I intend to be the thorn in the side here.
“Words fail me”
They don’t fail me, but I’m keeping them to myself to avoid being banned.
I think I found the problem on their web site: "VA North Texas Health Care System (VANTHCS) is a progressive health care provider in the heart of Texas." :-)
Sounds like they are Oppressive
Petraeus, Powell, et. al., may be retired, but they should have even more sympathy for the sufferings of our servicepeople (who, btw, may well have served under their command at some point). And where is their outrage, as they know first hand the personal sacrifices our boys make for our country - they are disabled for cryin’ out loud. These high-ranking officers are without excuse.
The FOX article is good, but what I’m driving at is really pounding the drum on air, prime time, day after day, so everyone KNOWS what just happened and the implications. FOX always says they’re the most watched news outfit, and Rush has the golden eib mike. A lot of people could be reached that way.
Why would it “make sense” to the author to ban overtly religious messages? The government isn’t writing the messages, private citizens are.
So the government is essentially censoring the private message of citizens to the troops that defend us.
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