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81% Celebrate Christmas As A Religious Holiday

The war on Christmas stuff is tedious. The problem is it is reacting to even more tedious nonsense in an inevitable, and probably necessary way.
Note the very important word "public". Public funds going to finance a religious display is a clear violation of the first amendment establishment clause.
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Depends on how you define that clause. It is clear that the ACLU position, that even the most inexpensive and small shows of acknowledgement of Christianity, like municipal Christmas trees or signs, are prohibited by this clause, is not what those who wrote or ratified it thought it meant. Fisher Ames, was the one who wrote it and he was one of the most conservative of the Founding Fathers. By 1805 he was predicting that democratic liberty would destroy the US as any worthwhile, moral nation. It is unlikely he agreed with the ACLU's position, as his writings on the subject show.
 
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Going after Christmas tree displays and nativity scenes has definitely slowed down...public opinion has gone UP in big numbers supporting christmas and Merry Christmas etc...as public opinion changed the constant yearly opposition has decreased
Its an issue that should never have been an issue in the first place...no one is using christmas to badger anyone else..
Christmas was around before they were all born...
 

Going to help you out here. Let me quote the first amendment for you:


Now, in this country, we have a court system, which has routinely and correctly ruled that this means the government cannot fund religion. There are exceptions, but they are relatively rare. In 1947, the establishment clause(that is what we call the first part of the first amendment in this country) was extended to include the states(appropriately). The phrase "separation of church and state" came from the writings of Thomas Jefferson. He is one of the founding fathers of our country. Further, according to I. Brandt's biography of Madison, Madison wrote the first amendment(it seems most likely), with Ames simply making the motion(this is what we call sourcing our claims).

And even further, your portrayal of the ACLU position is inaccurate. Just to give a couple examples, the ACLU has no litigation about US currency not military chaplains(again with the source thing...they mean you actually put effort into posting instead of making **** up).
 

It's a made up issue that has almost zero bearing on the real world. Only isolated nutcases have ever complained about christmas trees, nativity scenes are fine if some one other than the government pays for them and other religions get equal rights. The whole issue is a bunch of right wing fanatics either being paranoid or taking advantage of gullible people, or both.
 
I had no idea we were to treat forum posts like journal articles.....

The Collected works of Fisher Ames I own makes somewhat different claims for his hand in writing that clause. If he made the motion though, it is likely he sympathised strongly with it, however much of a hand he had in writing it. A quick google search provided me with several sources, of whatever reliability, which say pretty much what my copy of the collected works of Ames does.

Original Intent and the 1st Amendment
The note from your source can easily be interpreted to fit the view given here, though it interestingly seems to skirt the point either way(which may suggest embarrassment and wishing to avoid the issue), and in the numerous other sources a google search brings up.

In America you also have bitter rancour over judicial activism and the meaning and use of the constitution. Now of course those who simply accept contemporary court rulings as deciding the meaning of the constitution will not care about my point. However those who are interested in the strict and original meaning and interpretation of the constitution will no doubt feel differently.
 

I do so love how you focus on minutiae, desperately hoping no one notices all the big issue facts you got corrected on. You claim that one guy wrote the first amendment(possible but disputed), and then assume that his word is somehow law and the intent of the first amendment, despite the fact that one of the major architects of the first amendment created the whole "separation of church and state" thing you may have heard of, and who insisted on wording that included protection "of and from religion". He was one of the key, main founding fathers. You guys might have even heard of him over there. And yet you ignore him in favor of some guy who says what you want to believe.

And then you go into some retarded "judicial activist" thing, despite the fact that Jefferson was around from before we even had a judicial system, and that the first amendment is not that complicated. Furthermore, you might note that when SCOTUS rules, that then is the law of the land until such time as it overrules itself or an amendment is made. You may not like what SCOTUS rules(and I sometimes do not), but you cannot deny that that is the system in place over here in our country, which makes your judicial activism whine worthless.

And of course you totally ignored having your ACLU argument blown up. Funny that.
 
Kal'Stang said:
View attachment 67119674View attachment 67119675View attachment 67119676

Freedom From Religion Foundation

Sure don't look like BS to me.
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Look, let's settle this now.

Of course there are people who are anti-religion or whatever. There are always extremists on every side.

There is no widespread anti-Christmas movement though. And more important - attempts to preserve religious freedom for all, such as those by the ACLU, are NOT anti-
Christmas. THAT is the issue here that's BS.
 
You really need to calm down and not get over excited. I'm really not sure what your point is. I admit I stereotyped the ACLU position, but I don't think most will disagree with me, but whatever.

You didn't answer the most important point, why would Fisher Ames give the motion if he didn't agree with it? You have also not shown that Madison was responsible for the outcome. It seems his input was repeatedly and deliberately revised(and I was well aware the amendment was revised and Ames only came up with the final statement);

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

You also have far from proved that most of those at the convention were even as 'radically' secularist as Madison and most importantly that even he, let alone them, wanted to ban things like municipal Christmas trees or prayers in schools or had anything like the modern viewpoint of secularists who want absolute separation of church and state, done to Christmas trees and Ten Commandment statues. Also that amendment was meant only for the federal government.

The judicial activist and constitutional interpretation argument stands. My argument is of course only meaningful to those who care what the writers and ratifiers(the latter are even more important than the writers) meant and respect it, and generally want to enforce it.
 
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I disagree totally...there have been constant complaints about even just about the word Christmas Holiday on school calendars...Im not going and list dozens of articles from google...but to say its a made up right wing thing is ridiculous...I will agree some exagerate it...but its real non the less
 

I looked on Google myself, and there are no such complaints.

There, now you have to back up your own argument anyway.

And hey, "dozens" doesn't constitute a "war" anyway. Not that it matters. So some people have extreme ideas. So what? What's that prove?
 
The only reason people think the ACLU is anti-Christian is because it's mostly Christian fundamentalists who try to use government power to proclaim their faith in the public square, so when the ACLU comes in to defend the Wall of Separation, yeah, of course they look "anti-Christian". That's the people they have to fight against most often!
 

Exactly.

The ACLU does defend Christians when they are the victims. But usually they're on the other side.

And some of the claims about the ACLU's activities are simply lies.
 

81% of people claim to celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, is what it should read as. Do 81% of the people go to Church on Christmas? Doubtful. People love to pretend they're more devout than they are.

That being said, why the **** do I care? I celebrate Christmas as an American holiday, not in any religious context. But I go to church that day...which probably puts me ahead of some of that 81%.
 
Yes, the ACLU will defend either side. I've tried to explain that to people before, but there is so much anti-ACLU press.
 

This is yet another conservative talking point that has no basis in fact. The facts are clear that there were many and diverse opinions as why certain things were added to, or left out of the Constitution. As a point of law it only holds, at best, marginal significance. In the case to the establishment clause it holds almost no weight. It matters little what the founding fathers thought about any one individual issue. What does matter is what they thought the best system to address these issues going into the future should be. They clearly intended to set up a system whereby the people living in the current time of any controversy or issue are the best to answer those questions. If they had wanted to set up a rigid system in which only there current opinions and beliefs mattered they would have set up a rigid system, they did not. They purposefully set up a system that allowed the people in the current times to decide upon these issues as they affect them. They drew certain bounderies and framework to work within. I would suggest to you that it would not matter to them what there opinion on any one topic would be. What many of them believed to be important was that they set up a system which could work in the long term.

That being said we now live with that system. A system which has taken a look at the issues involved and made their decisions. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the current interpretation it is accepted law. You are welcome to disagree. You are welcome to try and change it. You are not welcome to act as if it does not exist or that the views that it expresses are somehow invalid because they do not match up to someone's opinion 230 years ago.
 
Kal'Stang said:
I read what you wrote. The fact that it may be impossible to eliminate does not mean that people won't try to eliminate it. As such the "impossibility" of it is irrelevant. Those banners prove that.
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Are you worried about them proving that god doesn't exist? That isn't possible either, and yet I'm sure that doesn't stop them from looking for a new angle or argument.

Either way, I called BS on the basis that your portrayal of their goals simply isn't possible in America, so whether you opt to concern yourself with the impossible or not my point still stands.
 

Again please provide some proof to your claims. The poll you quoted in the OP does nto make that argument. It offers no context to the poll. Is this an increase or decrease. Where is your proof, other than supposed common sense, that this has somehow occurred.
 

Yep. For some though it doesn't matter. For some they believe any display with religious undertones is wrong. The problem is not that there is a manger scene in the local park. The problem would be if a menorah wasn't allowed also.

Merry Christmas.
 
First there was the War on Christmas. Now the sequel: The War on the War on Christmas. As usual, the evil liberals having established there are no headquarters or organizations which specifically declared a war on Christmas so therefore declare there not to be one. Despite the evidence of the removal of religions symbols, religous language, religious songs and the pervasive fear of offending someone by saying "Merry Christmas", there is no real war. Nothing has really changed at all.
 

It's funny, I've heard more military guys say "get rid of military chaplains" or at least don't pay them, than I've heard from outside the military. And then it is for what they perceive as a practical use of funding issue. Most people would rather drop chaplains than reduce their own pay, take a chance that they'll be kicked out due to reduced funding, or be short on gear.
 
Sounds like a war on Secularism to me.
 

My question is how the rights of the other 19% can be preserved.
 

Would the pay of every single chaplain in the military even reach the cost of one bomb?
 
jambalaya said:
Despite the evidence of the removal of religions symbols, religous language, religious songs
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Sometimes this is appropriate and/or a protection from establishment of religion.

and the pervasive fear of offending someone by saying "Merry Christmas"
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That crap hardly qualifies as "war."
 
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