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Thanks, Greg. It’s nice to have
someone agree with someone else on something. We are on the same page with
regard to colleagues and friends. With regard to strangers, as I said earlier,
I don’t bristle at Merry Christmas or expect Christians to self censor
their _expression_ of celebration. But I do appreciate multi-Holiday or generic Alan Brownstein From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Sisk, Gregory C. I appreciate Alan’s point and, as
applied to a specific relationship between colleagues or friends, I don’t
disagree. I was speaking of the public square and of general greetings
offered to strangers or casual acquaintances. For Christians to offer a
generic “Merry Christmas” to passersby, or while standing in line
at the grocery store, or as a word of thanks to the person who holds the door
open for them at the post office, or with a wave to a neighbor down the street
is a positive _expression_ of religious sentiment. To expect Christians to
carefully suppress such natural expressions of joy around Christmastime
whenever they pass into a public setting is, I submit, to expect a not
insignificant degree of self-denial. By contrast, when I interact with my
Jewish friends and colleagues, my behavior is individually-tailored, not just
on religious matters but as a part of our friendship and based upon our
relationship. In keeping with Alan’s point, I would not wish a
Jewish friend a Merry Christmas or Happy Easter, although I frequently receive
such a greeting from them. However, I might well share with Jewish or
Muslim friends my plans for the Christian holidays and what they mean to me,
just as I welcome and often receive the same in return with respect to Yom
Kippur or Passover or Ramadan. Greg -----Original Message----- 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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