I’m sorry, Greg. I just don’t
get it. I would say Mozel Tov to my Christian friends. I would not wish them a
Happy Passover. I certainly do not feel that I am practicing self-denial and the
suppression of my identity when I wish my Christian friends a Happy Easter, but
refrain from wishing them a Happy Passover. Why would you feel that you are suppressing
your identity if you wished me a Happy Passover instead of a Happy Easter? Alan Brownstein From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Sisk, Gregory C. 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 MSL 400, 651-962-4923 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://personal2.stthomas.edu/GCSISK/sisk.html |
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