Even to the extent that “Merry
Christmas” is a religious _expression_ by the speaker, and surely it is
some of the time (and by some speakers all of the time), to chastise the person
who offers “Merry Christmas” as a greeting or to expect the courteous
speaker to self-censor that rather minimalist religious sentiment strikes me as
precisely the kind of arid and artificial denial of self-identity that we tend
to reject today for almost every other segment of society. In a society
that is affirmatively pluralistic in the public setting, rather than
reluctantly tolerant (or worse, intolerant), we ought to encourage every person
to positively express him or herself in a manner that upholds individual dignity
and identity as part of a community of deeply shared meaning. For a
student to resist a congratulatory message expressed by a Jew as “Mazeltov”
appears to me to be the equivalent of saying, “if you have to be Jewish,
at least try to keep it to yourself so that I am not made uncomfortable and do
not have to acknowledge you as a Jew.” For a Christian to deliberately
refrain from sharing words of “Merry Christmas” or “Happy
Easter” at those points in the year corresponding to the two greatest
celebrations of the Christian faith likewise would involve a degree of
self-denial and suppression of identity. What is important about the
_expression_ in either case is not as much what it means to the recipient as in
how it expresses the sincere conviction and associational values of the speaker.
We ought to encourage more such positive expressions by members of diverse
religious communities rather than strip the public square of all religious
_expression_, thereby creating a naked secularism that leaves us all feeling cold
and alienated.
Greg Sisk
Gregory Sisk
Professor of Law
University of St. Thomas School
of Law (Minneapolis)
MSL 400, 1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2005
651-962-4923
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://personal2.stthomas.edu/GCSISK/sisk.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Volokh, Eugene
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005
4:19 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for
Law Academics
Subject: RE: The Holiday That Dare
Not Speak Its Name
It
seems to me that the longstanding tradition has been to act as if all customers
are people who accept a statement of best wishes as a statement of best wishes.
It's not "Have a meaningful celebration of the birth of Jesus, our
Lord." (Interestingly, in Russian, the Happy Easter greeting is
"Christ has risen" and the expected response is "Truly, he has
risen," so such overtly religious greetings may well be present in many
cultures.) It's "Merry Christmas." I'm a secular Jew, and
I'm quite able to have a merry Christmas, even without celebrating it as a
religious holiday; when people say it to me, I assume that they're just wishing
me a nice time on a day off, not a religiously meaningful experience.
Among other things, I suspect they realize that even many people who are
nominally Christians really don't experience Christmas as a religiously
meaningful experience, but likely just as an occasion to have a nice family
meal.
There's no more cause for non-Christians to bristle at Merry Christmas than for
Chinese-Americans or for Jews to bristle at Happy New Year. "Happy
New Year" isn't an assertion that everyone ought to accept the Roman-/Christian-based
calendar as the proper one; it's a statement of best wishes on a particular day
off, and for the days to come. "Merry Christmas" seems to me to
be little different.
If you want to change the
Merry-Christmas-wishing tradition, fine. But expect people who like the
tradition, and want it to continue, to disapprove of your attempts, and to try
to combat them. I see no reason to fault them for such an attitude.
-----Original
Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005
1:13 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for
Law Academics
Subject: Re: The Holiday That Dare
Not Speak Its Name
The assumption that many of us do
"bristle" is indeed correct -- I know I do (and more importantly, my
kids do). But geez -- it's only bristling, not
outrage.
That is to say: The point is
not that "bristling deserves accommodation." It probably does;
but big deal. Rather, the point is that my religion deserves respect (not
accommodation) -- or rather, that each of us deserves the basic respect of not
having our vendors simply assume we all celebrate the same (majoritarian)
holidays. The "longstanding tradition" has been to act as if
all customers are Christians. Sure, the majority of people
"enjoy" it -- because in their case, the assumption, the
generalization, is correct. That's a tradition worth changing.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 3:34
PM
Subject: RE: The Holiday That Dare
Not Speak Its Name
Actually, what I
think Rick is annoyed by is the assumption that
non-Christians bristle at being wished "Merry Christmas" -- and that
this bristling deserves accommodation, as a business matter and as a
manners matter -- but that Christians *do not* bristle at the
generification of a longstanding tradition that they have enjoyed, and
they see (with good reason, in my view and in Rick's) as innocent and
harmless, or that their bristling doesn't deserve accommodation. And if
Rick is right that many Christians do bristle at this, then it makes
sense for Rick and others like him to urge people to make this bristling
known, lest it otherwise be assumed not to exist and therefore be
ignored.
I myself would prefer that people would bristle less at such
things
in either direction. But when some forcefully speak out on one side of
the matter, and demand that businesses change their practices -- even if
no legal threat accompanies the demand -- then it's hard to condemn
others' forcefully speaking out on the other side.
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Marty Lederman
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 12:28 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
"I am also extremely annoyed by businesses tha direct employees to wish
us only a generic "Happy Holidays" while simultaneously attempting to
profit by selling Chrstmas presents to millions of Christmas shoppers."
Yes, it is annoying, isn't it -- and inexplicable, from a business
standpoint -- when businesses stop presuming that all their customers
are Christians.
----- Original Message -----
From: Rick Duncan
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 3:20 PM
Subject: The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Well, I think there is an attack on Christmas celebrations in public
places (both government and business), but I am not as pessimistic as
Rabbi Spero about how successful it will be.
I am also extremely annoyed by businesses tha direct employees to wish
us only a generic "Happy Holidays" while simultaneously attempting to
profit by selling Chrstmas presents to millions of Christmas shoppers.
The idea that celebrating Chrstmas in private businesses open to the
public is somehow intolerant may well come from EC decisions that equate
religious "endorsements" with creating classes of outsiders. The
jurisprudence of the Supreme Court is a seminar, and many businesses may
have learned from it that to endorse religious holidays is somehow to be
guilty of intolerance, of sending a message to some of their customers
that they are unwelcome.
The big Christmas movie this year will be The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe, a film about the land of Narnia, where "it is always winter
but never Christmas." But that need not be the story of America.
It is not intolerant for government or business to recognize that we are
a nation of many communities who celebrate many different events and
holidays. As Seamus
Hasson says in his excellent book, The Right to Be Wrong, "an authentic
pluralism...allows all faiths into the public square--where the
government's own cultural efforts reflect those of the people and the
communities it serves." (p.130)
Come to think of it, The Right to be Wrong would make a great Christmas
(or Hanukkah) present for someone on your list.
Cheers, Rick Duncan
"Friedman, Howard M." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I must say, I find the exercise of claiming that Christmas is under
attack both distressing and amusing. Everyone seems to agree that
government cannot promote one religion over another, so insofar as
complaints are about governmental action (like renaming city Christmas
trees as Holiday trees), religious people seem to be arguing that we
should find Christmas really to be a secular holiday. Many of the
complaints, though, like the linked Human Events column, complain that
private businesses are slighting Christmas. This, of course, has
nothing to do with the First Amendment. Instead, having reached the
limit of converting Christmas into a commercial holiday, merchants have
branched out to try to turn other minor occassions that occur around t!
he same time into excuses for equally extravagant spending on gifts. If
anyone should complain, it should be other religious groups, for society
is more and more telling them that their minor holidays (such as
Hanukkah) really should be seen as a celebration as important as
Christmas. One of the important purposes of the Establishment Clause was
to prevent the distortion of religious doctrine by governments. The
distortion of religious doctrine by Madison Avenue however is another
story.
*************************************
Howard M. Friedman
Disting. Univ. Professor Emeritus
University of Toledo College of Law
Toledo, OH 43606-3390
Phone: (419) 530-! 2911, FAX (419) 530-4732
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*************************************
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf
of Rick Duncan
Sent: Mon 11/28/2005 12:30 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Once Upon A Time When America Had Christmas
Rabbi Aryeh Spero has this interesting column online at Human Events. I
don't know Rabbi Spero, but I very much enjoyed his little cautionary
tale set in December 2030.
Rick Duncan
Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
"Merry Christmas--It's ok to say it." --Alliance Defense Fund Slogan
"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or
Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
numbered." --The Prisoner
Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
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Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
"Merry Christmas--It's ok to say it." --Alliance Defense Fund Slogan
"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or
Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
numbered." --The Prisoner
Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
To
subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Please
note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as
private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are
posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly
or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
To
subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Please
note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.
Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can
read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others.
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