Tag Archives: Christmas

House Committee: Obama Administration Banned Christmas Carols and Cards for Veterans

(The Daily Caller) — The Obama administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) prohibited veterans from hearing Christmas carols or receiving gifts wrapped in Christmas-themed wrapping paper, prompting outrage from a congressional committee.

VA officials in Iowa City, Iowa told representatives of the American Legion that they could not hand out gifts to veterans wrapped in wrapping paper that featured the term “Merry Christmas.”

Additionally, the VA Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia — which treats veterans — banned Christmas carolers from singing Christmas songs with religious references in public areas.

The Dallas VA Medical Center blocked local schoolchildren from giving Christmas cards to veterans because some of the cards included the terms “Merry Christmas” and “God Bless You.” A similar incident occurred in Montgomery, Alabama, where the VA Medical Center blocked veterans from receiving gift bags that included the term “Merry Christmas.”

Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, expressed his outrage over these incidents in a letter to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki provided to The Daily Caller.

“Because Christmas is a federal holiday and VA is a federal entity, VA patients, volunteers and veterans service organizations should be free to respectfully honor it without obstruction or censorship from VA. Unfortunately, it appears some VA officials seem to disagree with this concept,” Miller wrote.

“it is not up to the department to decide whether or not it’s appropriate for certain government entities, such as VA, to allow the recognition of Christmas. That decision was made in the 1800s when our government formally declared Christmas a federal holiday,” Miller wrote.

“Even though we are a nation of many faiths, our government’s recognition of Christmas – a religious holiday by nature – is not devoid of religious references,” Miller added.

Miler asked VA to provide to his committee a plan to correct these kinds of problems by January 20 at the latest.

[H/T The Daily Caller]

Soldier Discouraged From Mentioning Christmas

(via Western Journalism) — Even as many spend the holiday season away from family and friends, the military personnel who fight for American liberties continue to see their own stripped away. The latest illustration of this trend came with a soldier’s complaint that he was instructed not to use the potentially offensive word “Christmas.”

US-Army-2-SC

Reports indicate an Army officer at Mississippi’s Camp Shelby gave the order earlier this month, leading at least one soldier to speak out. The Liberty Institute has offered its voice to the issue, with attorney Michael Berry expressing his disappointment with the officer’s order.

“Are they going to have the ‘Merry Christmas’ police going around issuing citations to a soldier who slips and says the word?” he wondered.

Berry contended the Army is “treating Christmas like it’s pornography” before reconsidering. “As a matter of fact, the Army actually treats pornography better than it does Christmas.”

While an Army public affairs official explained personnel are only encouraged to use the bland “holiday” designation, the soldier who initiated this debate asserts it was a direct order.

“Our equal opportunity representative stopped by the briefing room and told us that we can’t say Christmas,” the individual told Fox News columnist Todd Starnes. “Almost the entire room blew up. Everybody was frustrated.”

“Between the Air Force and the Army,” the soldier continued, “it’s like they don’t like Christian values, they don’t like the word ‘Christ’ or ‘Christmas.’ They don’t like you talking about it.”

As school children in Texas realize their handmade cards for wounded veterans will not be delivered due to the inclusion of the word “Christmas,” soldiers in Mississippi learn they cannot even utter the holiday’s name.

If any group should be free to embrace their personal faith, it is the military. Unfortunately, these brave men and women are at the forefront of an all-out attack on such displays.

[H/T Western Journalism>>B. Christopher Agee]

Bill O’Reilly: “Cut him off, he’s a jerk” A Heated Argument With Mike Weinstein Over Nativity Scenes Taken Down at Guantanamo Military Base

http://content.bitsontherun.com/players/bxm52fYI-OwlNfjNX.html

Bill O’Reilly destroys Mike Weinstein over a Nativity Scene.

The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay traditionally displays a Nativity scene in each of its dining halls, which serve thousands of military and civilian personnel. This year, a few people complained to the group, Military Freedom From Religion, which demanded that the displays be removed, group founder Mikey Weinstein told O’Reilly.

Let this video be a lesson: Do not, under any circumstances, make Bill O’Reilly mad and then go onto his show expecting to be able to defend yourself. It simply isn’t possible.

[H/T YouTube]

SCHOOL REMOVES RELIGIOUS REFERENCES FROM SILENT NIGHT: ‘Holy Infant,’ ‘Christ The Savior’ Among Phrases Omitted

(WCBS-TV) The song “Silent Night” is at the heart of a concert controversy on Long Island.

Officials at Ralph J. Osgood Intermediate School removed several religious references, including “holy infant” and “Christ the savior,” from the popular Christmas carol before a concert featuring fifth-graders last week, WCBS 880′s Mike Xirinachs reported.

The intent was to avoid offending non-Christians, but the change left others upset.

Obama Family Christmas Card: No Mention of Christ or Christmas

Who has time for fussing over a Christmas card when you have all that packing to do for 17 days in Hawaii?

White House Christmas Card

That’s why the Obamas’ 2013 holiday wishes to the nation were about as warm as the glare Michelle Obama shot hubby when he was caught up in selfie hilarity with the blonde Danish chick at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service.

Thanks to the lack of color, warmth, and definition, at first glance it’s hard to tell what the card is exactly. On closer examination it’s obvious that it’s a pop-up of a starkly eggshell-colored White House featuring two relatively indistinguishable images of Bo and Sunny and a small American flag up top.

For added boredom, Barry, Shelley, Malia and Sasha, and Sunny and Bo, complete with paw prints, have adorned the card with their autographs. Other than that, there’s no holly, no Nativity, and the word “Christmas” (God forbid) is nowhere to be found.

Guess the goal is to keep it secular.

However, this is a White House that celebrates every St. Patrick’s Day by turning the fountain on the South Lawn green. And wasn’t it just a few weeks back that the White House was decorated to beckon in trick-or-treaters?

Now for Christmas the Obamas send out a godless card with no Magi, no angels, no nothing.

Although the pop-up seems message-less, to the trained eye the Obama whatever card is chock full of meaning. The White House being the focal point of a season that is supposed to be about the birth of Jesus Christ.

The card also echoes Michelle Obama’s gathering motif from the White House webpage that says:

This year’s theme is ‘Gather Around’. It celebrates the stories and traditions that bring us together this special time of year. As members of one American family, we are united in a story built over the course of two centuries.

The holidays serve as an opportunity to recall our Nation’s journey, reflect on our blessings, and to remember those who serve and sacrifice for our freedoms. It’s a season when each of us can do our part to care for one another.

Sorry but the ‘stories and traditions’ balderdash screams political correctness. And the usual socialist suggestion that “It’s a season when each of us can do our part to care for one another” is not only insulting to those who care for others all year long, but also a predictable sentiment coming from a band of progressive radicals planning to spend the next three years forcibly sharing wealth that isn’t theirs.

Moreover, what’s this theme about being “members of one American family… united in a story built over the course of two centuries?”

This is coming from the wife of a president who, every chance he gets, dredges up references to the racism that he thinks defines this nation, and does everything in his power to keep an “indivisible… nation under God” divided.

Then to carry that theme forward, the insensitive Obamas send out a colorless, unemotional holiday card that extends greetings to a nation suffering on every front featuring two dogs that live life basking in the lap of luxury.

Although the greeting says “As we gather round this season, may the warmth and the joy of the holidays fill your home,” which on the surface seems lovely, let’s remember this is coming from a family feverishly packing to leave home for the holidays to spend another $4 million ruining Christmas for every resident on the island of Oahu.

Meanwhile, amidst platitudes about “we do our part to care for one another” the Obamas will return to the White House featured in their insipid holiday card three days after the US healthcare system blows up and leaves millions of devastated Americans lying in its wake.

Tell us about “caring for one another,” Michelle and Barry, and get a clue. Jesus — not the White House —  is the reason for this season.

[H/T The Black Sphere]

School Bans Display Of Christmas Poster By Student Because It “Might Be Religious”

A school in Minnesota prohibited the display of a Christmas poster designed by a student for fear that it could be interpreted as in some way religious, despite the fact that it features modern day a cartoon character.

Rights Group The Rutherford Institute have taken up the case, noting that the depiction of Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas can in no way be defined as anything but a secular image, and that PACT Charter School officials have violated First Amendment rights by banning it.

Christmas Poster Banned

 

The poster was created by a student in order to encourage sales of the school yearbook as holiday gifts. However, it was deemed to be to controversial by Scrooge-like school officials.

School administrators announced that they could not use the image, saying that, somewhat ironically, under the First Amendment, the establishment of religion by a state authority is prohibited.

“Afraid of controversy, indoctrinated by political correctness, steeped in a zero tolerance mind set, and constitutionally illiterate, school administrators persist in playing the part of the Grinch every December,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.

“Yet there’s a really simple solution to this annual angst of whether students and teachers can display Christmas-related posters, wear Christmas colors of red and green or sing Christmas songs, and that is to stop being such Humbugs and create a vibrant, open environment where all expression can flourish.” Whitehead added.

The Virginia based rights group explains that it is within the law for schools to acknowledge historical and cultural elements of Christmas, as long as one form of religion is not specifically endorsed over others.

The Institute has produced a set of guidelines for school officials entitled “Twelve Rules of Christmas”, outlining what is Constitutionally acceptable as far as celebration of Christmas is concerned.

Rutherford also notes that similar cases have arisen from such over zealous political correctness where Christmas is concerned.

In one case, a school asked students to design “holiday cards” to send to US troops, but were told that they were absolutely not to use the words “Merry Christmas” on them.

In other cases, “nativity displays, Christmas carols, Christmas trees, wreaths, candy canes and even the colors red and green have been banned as part of the effort to avoid any reference to Christmas, Christ or God.” the report states.

[H/T Info Wars]

Did George Washington Predict America’s Fall?

George-Washington-SC[H/T Western Journalism] It’s that bustling time between Thanksgiving and Christmas (Christ’s Mass), our nationally recognized and congressionally “established” birthday celebration for Jesus, the sovereign Lord of all mankind. Now is a valuable opportunity to reflect upon our nation’s past, present, and future (our true past, not the historically revised version propagated by secular-”progressives”).

First, for the public school-educated: No, Thanksgiving was not about high-fiving the Indians for corn on the cob. In his 1789 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, George Washington made abundantly clear exactly Whom America should thank, and why.

Washington began by declaring that “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor” so that a special day might “be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country” as well as “for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed.”

Oh, how times have changed.

That, while “acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God,” continued Washington, America might “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations” in a concerted effort “to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue.”

You with me, Supreme Court?

Now, lest there be any confusion as to the identity of “the great Lord and Ruler of Nations” to Whom Washington referred, President John Adams, Washington’s successor, ordered, in 1799, a day of “solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer,” wherein he proclaimed that Americans should, “on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private: That they call to mind our numerous offenses against the most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that, through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come.”

“Separation of church and state”?

Not so much.

I know. Calm down, atheists. It wasn’t a theocratic dictate requiring that you bow your knee before Jesus. Christians don’t force conversion. After all, contrary to Barack Hussein Obama’s claim otherwise, we are not a “Muslim country” – yet. It was just a firm suggestion. As for bowing before Christ, God will see to that later.

Imagine if anti-Christian outfits like the ACLU or the so-called “Freedom From Religion Foundation” (FFRF) had been around back then. At a time when Americans’ freedoms were protected under an authentic First Amendment application, these counter-constitutionalists would have been laughed out of town (or worse) upon their first frivolous “Establishment Clause” lawsuit.

Still, George Washington’s myriad “declarations of American dependence” upon God were not all sunshine and fuzzy bunnies. Many took on a decidedly somber tone, clearly intended to warn both his patriotic contemporaries and, most especially, future generations.

America’s reluctant first chief executive sought to forestall the predictably devastating consequences of a national break from America’s Judeo-Christian moorings.

In fact, during his Farewell Address, Washington spoke of exactly the kind of subversive, anti-theist provocateurs who make up the aforementioned ACLU, FFRF, et al. He called them unpatriotic. He underscored the critical role religion and morality play to our national survival and, though he did not specifically identify them as such, warned of secular-”progressives” like Barack Obama – a man who, exposed as a serial liar, would later bring great shame upon the noble office Washington first held.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,” declared Washington, “Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. … [R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Regrettably, Washington’s parting words exemplify, to a great extent, the current state of affairs in the very government he helped to bring about.

“Let it simply be asked,” he warned, “‘where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?”

Where indeed? Not only have our courts of justice abandoned any “sense of religious obligation,” they increasingly seek to subvert “we the people’s” very freedom to exercise such obligation.

Is it any wonder, then, that, with a government that weaponizes the IRS, brushes off the gross moral failings of our public servants, and facilitates the brutal slaughter of tens of millions of its most vulnerable citizens – security for property, reputation, and life has disappeared?

Continued Washington: “It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

That “necessary spring” of “virtue and morality” has run dry. A “constitutional right” for sodomy-based “marriage”? – a sin both Washington and the criminal codes called an “infamous crime”? Seriously? A government mandate that Christians fund your abortion homicide, despite a non-negotiable biblical command to do no such thing? Are you kidding?

The foundation has fractured. The fabric has frayed.

In 1788, eight years prior to his Farewell Address, Washington wrote: “[T]he [federal] government … can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.”

We are in danger. As our national virtue melts away, it strains credulity to deny that we are entering, as Washington warned, a dark era of American despotism. Like water to the gulch, such despotism pervades in the absence of religion and morality.

And as history has shown, the despotic nation is not long for the world.