Free Republic

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Carolers singing "O Christmas Tree" crashed Rhode Island's Statehouse tree lighting on Tuesday after Gov. Lincoln Chafee unwrapped a holiday hubbub by calling the 17-foot spruce a "holiday" tree. Chafee insisted his word choice was inclusive and in keeping with Rhode Island's founding as a sanctuary for religious diversity. But his seasonal semantics incensed some lawmakers, the Roman Catholic Church and thousands of people who called his office to complain that the independent governor was trying to secularize Christmas. "He's trying to put our religion down," said Ken Schiano of Cranston, who came to the tree lighting...

OK, so a Rhode Island governor who won’t call it a “Christmas” tree? Dumb, but I get it. A Virginia courthouse where Santa’s been banned? I get that, too. But when the guy who won’t say “Merry Christmas” is Santa Claus, you know you’ve crossed the line into utter PC insanity. Or the border into Massachusetts. Same thing. On Sunday evening, my kids and I dropped into the Friendly’s in Sudbury for a post-Christmas-shopping-day treat. They got ice cream decorated with smiley-faces, and I got a few minutes of blessed relief from “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” blasting...

One Christmas night, Our Lord came down into a modern city to see what people were doing. Every­one was celebrating “Happy Holidays!” Christ met a policeman directing traffic and asked: “What does ‘Happy Holidays’ mean?” The policeman eyed Him suspiciously. “Where are you from?” “From Bethlehem.” “Where?” “Bethlehem,” Our Lord repeated. “Oh…Don’t you know it’s a holiday for kids?” “What is the origin of the holiday?” Our Lord asked. “Look, you ask too many questions. Can’t you see I’m busy? At the RestaurantNext, Christ paused by a restaurant advertising “Christmas Party—$50.00.” Ladies and gentlemen in elegant attire were entering. He...

How many are done with their Christmas shopping? In a small southern town, she saw a 'Nativity Scene' that showed great skill and talent had gone into creating it. One small feature bothered her: The three wise men were all wearing firemen's helmets. Totally unable to come up with a reason or explanation, she left. At a quickie mart on the edge of town, she asked the gentleman behind the counter about the helmets. He exploded into a rage, yelling at her, 'You darn Yankees never do read the Bible!' She assured him that indeed she did, but simply...

We're about to enter the "holiday season," and rather than the old-fashioned joy of it, we are surely going to enter into another litigious time of year. I'm a little confused over this "separation of church and state" issue that keeps popping up every “holiday season.” The word "holiday" is derived from the words “holy day,” so it's clear there is something religious lurking around in there. I'm also hearing a lot about a semi-public area, New York City’s Zuccotti Park, which a mob is being encouraged by public officials to take over and use as a live-in campground to...

I confess, I despise “Black Friday.” I hate the way consumers are urged to haul their Thanksgiving-exhausted selves out to stores — away from family members who have often traveled some distance to come together — so they can surrender their human dignity or assault the dignity of others in order to snag a ten-dollar sweater and a waffle-maker for $9.99. And I hate the way consumers go along with it. I hate the way the mad buying and bad behavior is attached to Christmas — the coming of the Christ was meant to set us free, and yet...

Walker said Monday that the evergreen decorated with ornaments and adorned with a star in the center of Wisconsin's Capitol Rotunda is a Christmas tree, not a holiday tree as it's been called for the past 25 years. The roughly 30-foot-tall tree was called a Christmas tree from the first display in 1916 until 1985. That's when politicians bowed to concerns about government endorsing religion and started referring to it as a holiday tree. The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation has opposed the term Christmas tree, saying it offends nonreligious people and amounts to a government endorsement of Christianity. The...

Some Massachusetts public school students have a day off this week, but it has nothing to do with power outages or snow. The Cambridge school system is believed to be the first in Massachusetts to give all students a day off for a Muslim holiday. Students are getting Tuesday off for Eid al-Adha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice, the Boston Globe reports. "We’re ecstatic about this," Atif Harden, interim executive director of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, told the newspaper. "This is the first year that it’s going to occur. This sort of recognition of our...

Massachusetts Principal Takes Aim at Fall Holidays, Says They're Insensitive Published October 15, 2011 | FoxNews.com An elementary school principal in Massachusetts has banned fall holidays, saying they’re insensitive, MyFoxBoston reported Friday. Somerville principal: Fall holidays are insensitive: MyFoxBOSTON.com Anne Foley, the principal at Kennedy School in Somerville, Mass., sent an email to teachers warning them about celebrating Thanksgiving, the Boston Herald reported. "When we were young we might have been able to claim ignorance of the atrocities that Christopher Columbus committed against the indigenous peoples," Kennedy School Principal Anne Foley wrote. "We can no longer do so. For many...

TODAY is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution in 1787. Since 2005, by Congressional mandate, all educational institutions receiving federal funds — from preschools to universities, whether public or private — are required to provide relevant educational programming to observe the occasion. Boston College, where I teach, generally hosts a symposium; the local middle school offers skits about the First Amendment. The Constitution Day mandate was a brainchild of the late Senator Robert C. Byrd, who believed it was necessary to address the nation’s lack of appreciation for our founding document.

Liberals fear payroll-tax holiday will undermine Social SecurityBy Mike Lillis - 09/14/11 01:58 PM ET Liberal lawmakers in both chambers are hammering the Obama administration for pushing a payroll-tax holiday they say threatens Social Security. The lawmakers fear Obama’s proposed 2012 payroll-tax break — included as part of his newly released jobs package — could become permanent, stealing from Social Security’s lone funding stream and eventually eroding senior benefits. “Over a period of years — if you do it one year, and then you do it two years, and then you do it three years — then it becomes permanent,”...

A theme park was forced to shut its gates to visitors yesterday when a mass brawl broke out after Muslim women were banned from rides unless they removed their headscarves. Two park rangers were hospitalised and 15 people were arrested in the scuffle at Rye Playland in New York. The theme park was crowded with around 6,000 visitors. Roughly 3,000 were in a Muslim tour group celebrating a holiday at the end of Ramadan.

NEVER FORGET THE PRICE THAT WAS PAID WHEN GOD BECAME MAN AND PROVIDED US THE MEANS FOR OUR SALVATION. NEVER FORGET THE PRICE THAT WAS PAID BY BRAVE PATRIOTS WHO BY GOD’S GRACE WERE ABLE TO GRANT US THE LIBERTIES WE NOW ENJOY! Amazing to discover that in the minds of early Patriots, the 4th of July signified a religious holiday like Christmas. To many of the followers of Jesus Christ, who by The Grace of Almighty God, had helped form this nation of ours, God who became Man had granted us freedom of knowing God and becoming like Christ;...

Bidens holiday in HamptonsLast Updated: 12:42 AM, May 31, 2011 Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, spent Memorial Day weekend in the Hamptons at the home of Internet pioneer and gay, bisexual and transgender-rights activist David Bohnett. The Bidens stayed at Bohnett's sprawling Southampton estate and were seen lunching at popular 75 Main on Saturday before a relaxed veep happily accompanied his wife as she browsed at Alice & Olivia and Calypso. A spy told us, "He had three Secret Service agents inside the restaurant, including one watching in the kitchen while the chefs made Mr....

The National Memorial Day Concert on PBS is in progress right now...

April 20, 1901: The pineapple upside-down cake appeared, prompted by Jim DoleÂ’s amazing canned pineapple from Hawaii. Stoves at that time were wood and coal fired. The ovens were highly inaccurate. Cakes were made in skillets on stove tops. Placing fruit on the bottom caramelized it. PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE â—¦ 3 cans 8 1/2-ounce pineapple rings â—¦ 1/4 cup butter â—¦ 2/3 cup brown sugar â—¦ 1 cup flour â—¦ 1/3 cup pecan or walnut halves or maraschino cherries â—¦ 3/4 cup sugar â—¦ 1 1/2 teaspoon salt â—¦ 1/4 cup shortening â—¦ 1/2 cup milk â—¦ 1 egg

Today we celebrate a federal holiday, which is much more about giving your public servants another day off than it is to honor the names of Jefferson and Washington. They can be honored without sending the workers home. But why in the plural? It’s because of the egalitarian necessity not to judge, we suspect. After all, who are we, mere American citizens, to say one president is better than another? Let’s lump ‘em all together and celebrate the U.S. Grants and Jimmy Carters too! Pollster Rasmussen Reports has an interesting survey on (or sort of on) point: . . .

Starbucks Workers Get Holiday Pay, Protest Anyway1/17/11 at 7:11 PM For most of us, Martin Luther King Jr. day is considered a holiday. But not for Starbucks workers, who up until this year didn't receive holiday pay for working on MLK Day. The Industrial Workers of the World Starbucks Workers Union spent three years lobbying to get Starbucks employees time and a half on the holiday — and this year they got what they wanted. And as is often the case, the company was loathe to give the union any credit in adding Martin Luther King Jr. Day to the...

I’ve noted Islamic attacks on Coptic Christians at home and abroad dating back to 2005 and Good Friday 2006. The latest wave of violence came over the New Year’s Day holiday in Egypt and follows increased Muslim persecution of Christians in Nigeria, the Philippines, Baghdad, and across the Middle East: For Christians in the Middle East, there is no doubt that daily life has become more difficult. Many complain of attacks and persecution, forcing hundreds to flee their homes. Among the different Christian groups in the region, the Coptic Christians in Egypt is the largest, numbering some six million. Attacks...

It’s 11:59pm and the countdown begins. We are about to transition out of the current year and enter into the New Year. Anticipation runs through. We are about to start something new. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy New Year!!!! Bands all across the world play the timeless classic song, “Auld Lang Syne,” and people everywhere go in to the new year with a set of goals to help better their lives, and at least some form of willingness to hopefully eliminate some of the bad habits that drag them down and take the focus...