Free Republic

Man sets himself aflame to protest religious names for California school district's breaksAP) A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation. The man, who was not immediately identified, on Friday also set fire to a Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica, said Fire Captain Garth Milam. Seeing the flames, Sheriff's Deputy Lance Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the man. Flames were devouring a Christmas tree next to...

SEATAC, Wash. — The Christmas trees are going back up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Port of Seattle officials had ordered the trees taken down over the weekend after a local rabbi threatened a lawsuit if a menorah wasn't also displayed at the airport. Airport officials say they took that action out of concern that if they allowed the addition of a menorah, they would also have to display symbols of other religions and cultures, which was not something airport workers had time for during the busiest travel season of the year. Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky says he never asked that the...

The departure of Christmas tree displays at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport — the Port of Seattle's response to a local rabbi's insistence that an electric menorah also be put up — is accelerating into an international spectacle in the so-called "war on Christmas." And that is not what Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky wanted. "I am devastated, shocked and appalled at the decision that the Port of Seattle came to," he said Sunday. As news coverage about the airport's trees spread from CNN to ABC to the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, Bogomilsky on Sunday began to receive hateful messages from people holding him...

SEA-TAC Airport - All of the Christmas trees inside the terminal at Sea-Tac have been removed in response to a complaint by a rabbi. A local rabbi wanted to install an 8-foot menorah and have a public lighting ceremony. He threatened to sue if the menorah wasn’t put up, and gave a two-day deadline to remove the trees. Sea-Tac public affairs manager Terri-Ann Betancourt said the trees that adorn the Sea-Tac upper and lower levels may not properly represent all cultures. She said that since this is their busiest time of year and they don't have time to add...

I’m mad as hell. I’ve been a Catholic all my life. I was an altar boy. I went to Catholic high school. I spent ten years in the seminary, studying for the priesthood. I have a degree in sacred theology. Yet some religious conservatives suggest that I can’t even walk into church anymore - without first taking a loyalty oath to the Republican party. The election of 2004 made it official. With the help of religious conservatives, Republicans have stolen religion. Of course, it’s not just liberal Catholics they stole it from. Liberals, moderates and progressives of all faiths –...

when my brother was six years old my dad hit a deer with his truck and got him right on the head and broke the deers nose.So he put it on the back of the truck and brought it home to clean it and cook it up.He pulled in about 10 seconds before my mom and brother did so my dad went and put down the gate of the truck and out plops the deers head and the first thing my brother saw was the blood RED nose of this deer.Now keep in mind this is about the 8 or...

A 12-year-old New Hampshire boy who wanted to jolly up his junior high dance by dressing in a Santa suit instead got a lesson in political correctness when his Scroogelike principal turned the student away, fearing he might offend his classmates.

Denver-area churches decided that the official, government-sanctioned secularization of the Christmas holiday had gone too far recently when the city's mayor decided to replace the traditional "Merry Christmas" banner atop the local City and County Building with a "Happy Holidays" greeting and the organizers of the local Christmas parade denied permission for a local church to participate. Christians around the city rose up in protest by descending on the city's annual Christmas parade and sang carols emphasizing the Christian origins of the celebration, as noted in this surprisingly sympathetic account in yesterday's New York Times. "Like a spark in dry...

I am deeply offended. Just because I am a conservative I cannot believe that FR would assume that I am a Christian and "wish" me a "Merry Christmas" on the front page of the web-site. I am an atheist and I do not celebrate the birth of Jesus. FR should be open and accommodating to ALL of its members. Just because 99.9999% of the membership is Christian, it does not give FR the right to offend me, the minority. I intend to enlist a swarm of ACLU lawyers in order to bend the forum to accommodate me because, as I...