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SANTA ANA – The removal of a Christmas tree from the Orange County Superior courthouse Monday has prompted a petition among court employees to have the tree – connected to a gift drive for poor children – put back. The six-foot artificial tree, which was adorned with tags seeking toy donations to 'Operation Santa Claus,' was removed Monday after a member of the public complained about the tree being in the courthouse, court spokeswoman Gwen Vieau said. "It's a public building and we have to serve the diversity of our community,'' she said. The tree had been put up in...

As you can see here (via TechCrunch) a few people are mad that BestBuy’s thanksgiving advertisement features a 14-letter phrase (or 15 if you count the hyphen). Who’s going to BestBuy this weekend?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Wide-eyed children around the world will be hearing from Santa's "elves" at the North Pole after all. During Christmas seasons for decades, these dedicated elves responded to thousands of letters addressed to "Santa Claus, North Pole." All that was ending with a U.S. Postal Service decision to discontinue the program based in the small Alaskan town amid privacy concerns. The elves from Santa's Mailbag vowed to fight the decision, while North Pole residents voiced outrage. A reversal of the Postal Service move was announced Friday. "We never wanted to spoil people's Christmas," said agency spokesman Ernie...

Any idea when the annual war on Christmas will start hitting the media? Genereal consensus where I work, is next friday.

The mayor of North Pole, Alaska is calling a recent postal service decision an assault on Christmas. For years, the U.S. Postal Service has delivered thousands of letters to Santa Claus in North Pole, Alaska. Now, in the interest of efficiency and security, the post office has changed its policy. It will no longer deliver letters to Santa here, and requests for a North Pole postmark will be filled through its Anchorage office. The decision has angered many residents, most notably the owner of the area’s primary attraction, the Santa Claus house.

Many of us parents just learned that ONE teacher complained that it offended her and they nixed the tradition. We are HOPPING mad and plan to do something about it. Any EFFECTIVE ideas????

<p>Atheists asked the Macomb County Road Commission to rescind their order removing a privately maintained Nativity scene set at the crossroads of the city.</p> <p>The Christmas culture wars for 2009 have begun and ground zero is the Detroit suburb of Warren, which for 63 years has hosted a privately maintained Nativity scene set at the crossroads of the city.</p>

John Satawa's family has displayed a nativity scene on a street median in Warren, Mich., virtually every Christmas season since 1945, but following an intimidating letter sent by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Satawa's county has put stop to the 63-year-old tradition. The Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation proclaims its purpose in the letter to the Road Commission of Macomb County was to "protect the fundamental constitutional principle of separation of church and state." But Satawa contends there's nothing unconstitutional about his privately owned and maintained Christmas display. With the help of the Thomas More Law Center, Satawa has filed...

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) called on Arizona state and federal officials on Monday to stop enforcing a requirement prohibiting the state's schoolchildren from expressing religious viewpoints through Christmas themes while decorating ornaments for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree. Arizona was chosen this year to present 4,000 handcrafted ornaments made by elementary, middle-school, and high-school students to decorate Washington, D.C.'s annual Christmas tree. Guidelines for the ornaments include specifications for their size, weight, composition, and the directive that "Ornaments cannot reflect a religious or political theme… Instead share your interpretation of...

The Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter to Governor Brewer and other officials saying that it goes against the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By KFYI News (KFYI News) Federal and Arizona officials, including Governor Brewer, were sent a letter by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) to stop enforcing a requirement banning kids from creating ornaments with religious themes for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree. Click here to read the entire letter. Arizona was given the honor of providing Washington D.C. their annual Christmas tree and having schoolchildren from around the state decorate the tree with some 4,000 ornaments....

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - This year many Christmas gifts have taken a political tone. Obama gifts have overtaken Tickle-Me Elmo and Nintendo Wii as the most popular gifts of the year. Some believe the Barack Obama presidency may have given the economy a boost even before he takes office. Many small stores have struggled in the tough economy. Some retailers say the sale of Obama merchandise has helped their slumping sales. The merchandise has become a hot item that comes in every shape and size. Tucked away in a little corner on Jefferson Street, a small specialty bookstore has suddenly transformed...

Christmas Dinner Causes Global Warming By Noel Sheppard Created 2008-12-25 12:31 First it's Christmas lights [0], now it's Christmas dinner...causing global warming. Yep. People who cook more than their guests will eat and throw the food away are destroying the planet. I'm not kidding. ABCNews.com in Australia reported [1] the following absurdity on Christmas Eve: Wasted food at Christmas time is now being highlighted as an environmental problem. Jon Dee, the chairman of Do Something, says gases from leftover food rotting in landfill are 20 times more potent than the carbon pollution from car exhausts. Mr Dee says there are...

<p>SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs. CSIRO researchers said householders should know that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases.</p>

The right-wing crusade against the liberal "war on Christmas" is great for rallying the troops. Too bad the war doesn't exist. In 1959, the recently formed John Birch Society issued an urgent alert: Christmas was under attack. In a JBS pamphlet titled "There Goes Christmas?!" a writer named Hubert Kregeloh warned, "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas -- to denude the event of its religious meaning." The central front in this perfidious assault was American department stores, where...

A public school teacher in Mississippi marked down an eleven-year-old’s Christmas poem assignment and told the boy to rewrite it because he used the word “Jesus,” which, the instructor explained, is a name not allowed in school. Liberty Counsel, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, reports that sixth-grader Andrew White of Hattiesburg, Miss., chose to write the poem on the assignment “What Christmas means to me.” After White turned in his rough draft, however, his teacher circled the word “Jesus” and deducted a point from his grade. The teacher then explained that he needed to rewrite the poem...

My son was playing on Nick Jr.'s Free Draw making a Christmas tree and when he went to write 'merry Christmas' The program would not allow him to type the word Christmas on his drawing. The error message was "Word Blocked" (also blocked where the words and phrases: Savior, Pope, Blessed virgin Mary, St. Nick, Hark the herald angels sing, Silent night, Away in the manger, no crib for his head, and even 'Obama is the AntiChrist', but I think it was because of the word Christ, not Obama, because I was able to write his name alone.) I was...

A woman has spoken of how she was told to remove her Christmas lights by a housing association worker - in case they offended her non-Christian neighbors.

A school choir was forced to withdraw from a Christmas event because organisers branded its carols 'too religious'. Around 60 children aged between seven and 11 had spent six weeks practising favourites including Once In Royal David's City and Silent Night for the Corringham Winter Festival. But they were let down at the last minute when their headteacher was informed their programme did not 'dovetail' with the festival's theme.

<p>AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A Dutch gay group said Monday it has planned a "Pink Christmas" festival for the first time in Amsterdam, featuring a manger stall with two Josephs and two Marys.</p> <p>Other attractions in the 10-day festival include parties, an open-air market, gay-themed films, an ice skating rink and religious services on Dec. 25.</p>

SNSC leaders discuss propriety of anti-Judeo-Christian message on the nationally syndicated Laurie Roth radio show Thomas Brejcha, President of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society and Daniel Zanoza, Executive Director of RFFM.org and Chairman of the Springfield Nativity Scene Committee (SNSC) will guest on the nationally syndicated Laurie Roth Show [www.therothshow.com] on Monday, December 8th, from 5 - 6 P.M. Central Time. Brejcha, legal counsel for the SNSC and Zanoza will discuss the Springfield, Illinois Nativity scene which is now standing in the center of the Illinois state Capitol Rotunda. Brejcha and Zanoza will also be responding to an atheist group's...

Surprise fireworks as FNC’s most combative anchor tries to explain the First Amendment to its most combative commentator. Good luck, Megyn! My knowledge of FA jurisprudence is rusty, but isn’t the crucial distinction between the atheism case and O’Reilly’s MLK/KKK hypothetical the fact that one of them touches on religion and the other doesn’t? The Establishment Clause prevents the state from endorsing religion over no religion, but there’s nothing in the Free Speech Clause preventing it from endorsing one non-religious viewpoint over another. The fact that MLK Day is a federal holiday doesn’t mean we have to have Klan Day,...

Christmas trees that have graced the two main libraries at the University of North Carolina won't be displayed this year, after numerous complaints, The Charlotte Observer reported. The trees have stood in the lobbies of Wilson and Davis libraries at the Chapel Hill campus during December. This year, they are being kept in storage. Sarah Michalak, the associate provost for university libraries, told the newspaper that she made the decision after several years of complaints from employees and others. “We strive in our collection to have a wide variety of ideas,” she said. “It doesn't seem right to celebrate one...

(CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch. An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.

I thought it would be safe," Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN. "It's always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It's not something you get used to." The sign, which celebrated the winter solstice, had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth. "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation said in part. The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was...

Here is a sample of how diversity is being celebrated this December: · Elementary school students in Plainfield, Illinois are decorating a “Holiday” tree that represents 18 countries. · A “Holiday Revelry” will be performed at the Framingham Civic League in Massachusetts; it is a “multicultural” event that includes “PAC Sword Dancers” and “traditional” Christmas songs such as “Pat-A-Pan.” · “Winter Traditions” will be celebrated at the Fort Collins Museum in Colorado. They include “Celebrations of Light” that highlight “traditions, cultures and celebrations from across the world.” · At a high school in Ocean City, Maryland, the annual “Winter Concert”...

Two Moroccans arrested in Italy yesterday wanted to blow up the Milan Cathedral on Christmas. They hoped an attack during the busy holiday would cost dozens of lives. This according to tapped phone calls, reports La Repubblica. The two belonged to an Islamic terror cell which had been followed by the Italian police already for months... Rachid Ilhami (31) and Abdelkader Ghafir (43) were arrested in Giussano, a city 25km away from Milan. The detectives gathered from tapped phone calls and confiscated computer files that the two also prepared attacks on a supermarket and a police bureau. They are arrested...

Greenwood Junior School sent out a letter to parents saying the three-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which takes place between December 8 and 11, meant that Muslim children would be off school. That meant planning for the traditional nativity play were shelved because the school felt it would be too difficult to run both celebrations side by side. The move has left parents furious. Janette Lynch, whose seven-year-old son Keanu attends the school, in Sneinton, Nottingham, said: "The head has a whole year to plan for Eid and so she should be able to plan for both religious festivals. "I...

OLYMPIA -- An anti-religion billboard in the Washington state Capitol has started a firestorm on national television. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly had an eight-minute segment on his show Tuesday night decrying the inclusion of the atheistic billboard along with a holiday tree and a Christian nativity scene. Conservative TV personality O'Reilly called the display "political correctness gone mad" and urged viewers to call Gov. Chris Gregoire's office to complain. Gregoire spokesman Pearse Edwards says the office has been getting about 200 calls an hour, as well as e-mails. The Capitol has had a holiday tree, provided by the Association of...

British parents looking to see their children in a traditional Christmas play are fuming after a school decided to cancel the performance because it conflicts with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reported. Officials at the Greenwood Junior School in Nottingham decided to postpone the annual holiday performance because it would have been too difficult to have both the Christmas and Eid celebrations together, The Telegraph reported. But parents told The Telegraph that they were originally told the performance was canceled because Muslim children wanted to celebrate Eid with their families, making it difficult to schedule...

Costco has 520 stores nationwide. But you will not find "Christmas" in a single store. That's because Costco says it will not use the term "Christmas" on its website or in its stores. Instead, Costco is telling customers it purposely chooses to use the generic "holiday" verbiage. You know, they stock holiday gifts, not Christmas gifts. Last week, a customer wrote to Costco and asked this direct question – "Does Costco use the word 'Christmas' in your store advertising or on any signs anywhere in your stores during the Christmas season? That's a pretty simple question, yes or no." Kory...

An annual boat parade in one New York community lost a major sponsor when organizers refused to use the word "Christmas" in the title. Last year more than 5,000 people turned out for the annual Christmas Boat Parade in Patchogue, New York. One of the parade's key sponsors, Fireworks by Grucci, donated the fireworks for the show on the condition that the word "Christmas" be used in the parade title. fireworksHowever, city officials received one complaint, and this year dropped the word "Christmas" from the title. That caused the fireworks company to pull its support from the parade taking place...

The huge cross near Ponchatoula's downtown locomotive won't be covered with blazing white bulbs for this year's Christmas Lights Festival. Instead, a second bar has been added to display banners advertising citywide events.

Liberty Counsel is already waving a green flag for Christmas and a red flag for its opponents through this year's "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign." Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver, who is also dean of the Liberty University Law School, has launched the sixth annual campaign to determine what stores want to take "Christ" out of Christmas. "We'll be the friend of those entities that honor Christmas and do constitutionally what they're supposed to do; and the foe of those who intentionally try to censor Christmas, whether it's in the public square or whether it's in the retail," he explains. Liberty Counsel's website...

To mark the holiday season, British pro-Palestinian activists have announced plans to hold an evening of “traditional carols with untraditional lyrics” to protest Israeli policies in Bethlehem. The historic church of St. James’s in central London’s Piccadilly will host a number of Christmas carols concerts through late December. In a twist, however, two Palestinian solidarity groups sponsoring one of the events, on Nov. 26, have rewritten the lyrics to make a political statement. Palestinian Authority-controlled Bethlehem, traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Jesus, is bordered on three sides by a network of security walls and fences separating it from nearby...

A Rabbi asked the City of Golden if he could put up a menorah near the Christmas tree and the reaction of the city is to consider banning all religous symbols. The City of Golden claims that they do not want to have any religous symbols such as the menorah on city property. City of Golen spokesman Jonathan Ashford said that "the goal here is to set guidelines. The city has had a history of having a display downtown that didn't include any kind of specific religious message or theme. We've tried to keep it neutral, very open, very inclusive."...

Atheism is for sale, sort of like lasik eye surgery or the upcoming “24” two-hour movie event in a couple of weeks. If you live or work in Washington, D.C., keep an eye open, because it’s coming to a bus side near you. In what the Associated Press accurately calls the “latest combatant in the Christmas wars,” DC commuters will be asked, “Why believe in a god?” in ads that will adorn buses through December, with a catchy little tag line that suggests folks should “just be good for goodness’ sake.” Cute. I giggle here (with no disrespect intended, I...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars. Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday. In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday. In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas. "We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group...

A plan by a council-funded charity to ban the word Christmas from this year's festive celebrations has been criticised by religious leaders of all denominations. Oxford city council confirmed the events in the city would be renamed 'Winter Light Festival' to make them more inclusive, provoking outrage among shoppers in the city who called for a return to tradition.

With a stroke of the pen, a college has eliminated Christmas from the calendar. Likewise, Easter is gone, both now being branded "end of term" breaks at Yorkshire Coast College, according to the UK's Daily Mail. The reason? Apparently school officials wanted to make sure they didn't "discriminate." "Every school and college, wherever located, is responsible for educating its learners who will live and work in a country which is diverse in terms of cultures, religions or beliefs, ethnicities and social backgrounds," a spokeswoman for the college told the newspaper. "All employees at Yorkshire Coast College are encouraged to closely...

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two high school students who say they are offended by the school's policy of allowing prayer at voluntary events and holding Christmas concerts at churches. The students, from Pace High School in Pace, Fla., are identified only as Minor I Doe and Minor II Doe in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court because they are both under 18. The complaint alleges disclosure of their names would put the students at risk of "social ostracism, economic injury, governmental retaliation … and potential physical harm." Benjamin Stevenson, staff...

ANN ARBOR, MI — Today, July 31st at 10:00AM EST, a New Jersey Federal Court heard oral arguments in a legal challenge to a public school district’s policy totally banning Christmas music, including simple instrumentals without words, during year-end celebrations in its schools. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan filed the federal lawsuit on the grounds that the school district’s ban on religious music conveys a government-sponsored message of disapproval and hostility toward religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center,...

AMSTERDAM, 06/06/08 - Amsterdam municipal transport company (GVB) bus-drivers and tram personnel cannot celebrate Christmas any more. GVB is axing the event to please Muslims, newspaper de Telegraaf suggested yesterday. Personnel association VTN has been told by GVB management that "the multicultural representation of the colleagues at the Christmas party is too one-sided." Supposedly, GVB meant to say that only white GVB staffs have been attending the annual event organised by management in the past years. It has therefore halted its financial contribution to the Christmas party. "We have a limited budget and want to organise something that is intended...

Over the last two weeks, leading American atheists have registered complaints about all the attention given to Christmas in the United States. These atheists have issued three challenges. First, they insist that being atheist does not mean being immoral. Second, they want other people to see that atheists are law-abiding, compassionate, and generous to others—that one does not have to be Christian or to feel “the Christmas spirit� to care for the poor and the needy. Third, they insist that monotheists have a harder time being tolerant of others than atheists do. Atheists, they think, are more humble, tolerant, and...

Group calls for end to Christmas Culture wars The outrage by some people over department stores using the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is a distraction from real moral and social issues, according to a group of concerned Catholics and evangelical Christians. The group has called for a “cease-fire in the Christmas culture wars,” and challenged conservative talk-show host Bill O’Reilly and others who have lashed out against a so-called secular “War on Christmas.” In an “Open Letter to Christmas Culture Warriors” published as an advertisement in the New York Post, Washington Times and the National Catholic Reporter,...

For public school students, Christmas - as religious holidays in general - is fast becoming taboo. A memo from Intermediate District 287, a west-metro district headquartered in Plymouth, conveys the atmosphere succinctly. “In Intermediate District 287,” the memo instructs, “it is not appropriate to experience other’s [sic] religious traditions at work or school. . . . Decorating should be limited to celebration of the winter season,” with decorations confined to “snowpeople, snowflakes, skating scenes.” Prohibited images include “Santa Claus, . . . Christmas trees, wreaths, Star of David, Menorah, Buddha!, . . . and Christmas cards.” Staff must survey their...

In Christmases past, residents of Kingston House in West York hung a tree with Santa Clauses and decorated a common room with puzzles showing Christ in a manger. School groups and carolers came through the halls singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and other popular Christian hymns. But things are different this December. At Kingston House and other properties owned by the York Area Development Corporation, songs or decorations in common areas must be secular. The same policy applies to hundreds of tenants in York City's Delphia House and other apartments managed by the development...

Schools walk holiday line Season's symbols pose a dilemma By Gina Davis Sun reporter December 23, 2007 Ken Shapiro doesn't seem to be a Scrooge. He says he loves the holiday lights, has a Christmas tree in his home and hangs a 9-foot wreath outside. But Shapiro, a longtime Baltimore County teacher who describes himself as a nonpracticing Jew, grows angry when he talks about one particular evergreen that is strung with multicolored lights. That's because the tree is on the grounds of Carney Elementary School - and he says it violates his religious freedom. "In this case, Carney is...

A Midwestern university has mandated "Merry -----mas" as a holiday greeting, banning "Christ" in apparent violation of the U.S. Constitution, according to Liberty Counsel, which works to advance religious freedom and the traditional family. The events have developed at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Okla. The controversy began when the university's director of human resources recently visited various departments and said that decorations featuring the word 'Christmas' in any areas of the university must be immediately removed," the organization said. "He also instructed the employees not to say 'Christmas' while on the job. As a result the employees cannot...

Weatherford, OK – Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU), has issued a disturbing policy which requires all employees to refrain from using the word "Christmas" in oral or written form. This directive was given by the university upon legal advice of the Oklahoma Attorney General, W.A. Drew Edmondson. Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to SWOSU following a complaint from a university affiliate. John Misak, the Director of Human Resources, recently visited various university departments and employee groups and informed everyone that any decorations featuring the word "Christmas" in any work or public areas of the university must be immediately removed....