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beccastareyesOkay, so I don't know how many of you have been following the State of Washington's holiday display drama-fest. I'll try to summarize it here.
A Christian group asks to put up a Nativity scene in the Capitol Building for the holidays. The governor agrees, under the provision that other groups may also set up holiday displays with permission, because the State of Washington does not officially endorse any religion. So, you get some displays, a menorah, and so on. An atheist group ask to set up a sign. The governor doesn't agree with the wording, but allows it -- after all, freedom of speech and religion doesn't apply only to what you agree with. (For that matter, I didn't think it was very seasonal or well-worded*.)
Anyway, the sign attracted protest and someone stole it and tossed it into a ditch. The atheist group insisted it be hung up again, but this brought the issue to national attention. Other groups asked to have signs in protest of the sign added to the holiday display and secular people started applying for displays (like a display for Festivus, invented by the characters of Seinfeld, and a display for the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Infamous Attention-Whore and Real-Life-Troll Fred Phelps and his goons even asked their sign, about how belief in Santa Claus was going to send you to Hell, be included. (For once, Fred Phelps didn't mention The Gays, which is good for him, though he did blame belief in Santa Claus for the economic downturn.)
Moral of this story: Just put up some reasonably generic winter themed decorations. Evergreens, snowflakes and lights go reasonably well with any sort of solstice-themed celebration that people in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate. Let the nativities and the menorahs and the crazy signs and the Flying Spaghetti Monster effigies and the who knows what else to houses and churches and non-government buildings.
* My favorite atheist/agnostic/humanist display that I've read about was a tree decorated with books labeled 'Tree of Knowledge' -- various historically important and influential books were hung on the branches, including religious texts such as the Bible and the Koran, and other important books like Newton's Principia Mathmatica and Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
A Christian group asks to put up a Nativity scene in the Capitol Building for the holidays. The governor agrees, under the provision that other groups may also set up holiday displays with permission, because the State of Washington does not officially endorse any religion. So, you get some displays, a menorah, and so on. An atheist group ask to set up a sign. The governor doesn't agree with the wording, but allows it -- after all, freedom of speech and religion doesn't apply only to what you agree with. (For that matter, I didn't think it was very seasonal or well-worded*.)
Anyway, the sign attracted protest and someone stole it and tossed it into a ditch. The atheist group insisted it be hung up again, but this brought the issue to national attention. Other groups asked to have signs in protest of the sign added to the holiday display and secular people started applying for displays (like a display for Festivus, invented by the characters of Seinfeld, and a display for the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Infamous Attention-Whore and Real-Life-Troll Fred Phelps and his goons even asked their sign, about how belief in Santa Claus was going to send you to Hell, be included. (For once, Fred Phelps didn't mention The Gays, which is good for him, though he did blame belief in Santa Claus for the economic downturn.)
Moral of this story: Just put up some reasonably generic winter themed decorations. Evergreens, snowflakes and lights go reasonably well with any sort of solstice-themed celebration that people in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate. Let the nativities and the menorahs and the crazy signs and the Flying Spaghetti Monster effigies and the who knows what else to houses and churches and non-government buildings.
* My favorite atheist/agnostic/humanist display that I've read about was a tree decorated with books labeled 'Tree of Knowledge' -- various historically important and influential books were hung on the branches, including religious texts such as the Bible and the Koran, and other important books like Newton's Principia Mathmatica and Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
