Disturber of the Peace |
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"Any questioning of the moral ideas that prevail ...is received with the utmost hostility. To attempt such an enterprise is to disturb the peace" --H. L. Mencken
Almost-Pithy Punditry from a Predominantly Papist Perspective, Sponsored by Disturber of the Peace Institute, a Washington, DC Think Tank which does not exist
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Friday, December 26, 2003
UNRAVELING THAT "PAGAN" CHRISTMAS: It Wasn't Based on Saturnalia, Christian Scholar Finds You know the story if you've traveled in Fundamentalist, Neo-Pagan, or Atheist circles long enough: The ancient Christians, we are told, "stole" the celebration of Christmas and its date (December 25) from the ancient pagans of Rome, in particular the pagan Roman holiday known as alternately as "Saturnalia" and the “Birth of the Unconquered Son.” Not so, says William Tighe at Touchstone magazine. Tighe, an Associate Professor of History (Muhlenberg College), notes in particular that... ...the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Moreover, Tighe continues, As things actually happened, Aurelian, who ruled from 270 until his assassination in 275, was hostile to Christianity and appears to have promoted the establishment of the festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” as a device to unify the various pagan cults of the Roman Empire around a commemoration of the annual “rebirth” of the sun. He led an empire that appeared to be collapsing in the face of internal unrest, rebellions in the provinces, economic decay, and repeated attacks from German tribes to the north and the Persian Empire to the east. In creating the new feast, he intended the beginning of the lengthening of the daylight, and the arresting of the lengthening of darkness, on December 25th to be a symbol of the hoped-for “rebirth,” or perpetual rejuvenation, of the Roman Empire, resulting from the maintenance of the worship of the gods whose tutelage (the Romans thought) had brought Rome to greatness and world-rule. If it co-opted the Christian celebration, so much the better. The December 25th date became significant to the ancient Christians almost entirely as the result of Greek East and the Latin West ...Christians attempt[ing] to figure out the date of Christ’s birth long before they began to celebrate it liturgically, even in the second and third centuries. The evidence indicates, in fact, that the attribution of the date of December 25th was a by-product of attempts to determine when to celebrate his death and resurrection. Tuesday, December 23, 2003
TAKING CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS... ...and Everything Else Too Fox News reports that there is an alarming and growing trend afoot to remove all vestiges of our Christian heritage not only from public Yuletide celebrations and displays, but from everything else the public square as well. It seems militant secularist groups with more time and $$$ than brains on their hands are increasingly Hell-bent upon shoving Christianity, including Christmas itself, and Western religion in general down George Orwell's Memory Hole: ...Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not. The FCC allows the "F-word" on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no. And some schools freely dispense condoms to kids, but pencils that read "Jesus loves little children" were confiscated from a first-grade class in Virginia. Some, like War on Christianity author David Limbaugh, say the list of examples is long and is evidence of an undeclared cultural war on the religion. But those on the other side of the battle, like Elliot Minceberg of People for the American Way, point to the Constitutional separation of church and state as the reason behind keeping religion out of public life. ...[But] the Constitution doesn't explicitly discuss separating church and state. Instead, what it does say is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...," which means that, unlike in England, the United States decided not to form an official national religion, nor can the government interfere with the practice of any religion. In fact, in 1789, in the days after Congress passed the First Amendment, it declared a national day of prayer. Still, the number of bans on public displays of Christianity continue to grow.... ...AND TAKING CHRISTMAS OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE: The American Public Takes on the Grinches In his nationally syndicated op-ed column of this past Sunday, pundit John Leo notes that there is a growing popular resistance against efforts by the ACLU and other radical "First Amendment" groups to erase Christmas and traditional seasonal references, as well as Christmas carols and symbols, from all public "holiday" displays and events: ....on the whole, things are not going well for the Grinches. In New Jersey, for example, the Hanover Township school district said it was considering a ban on Christmas carols and other religious songs at school concerts. Parents protested and threatened to sue, so the school board beat a hasty retreat. “If a school wants religious music, they can have it, the way they could before,” said the school board president. The key phrase here is “threatened to sue.” In the old days, when an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer would show up to hammer some tiny school board into submission, the legal costs of resisting were so high that the boards usually caved in. Now the anti-Grinches have legal muscle of their own. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the Hanover parents, claims to have 700 lawyers ready to fight anti-Christmas assaults around the country. The ADF played a lead role in blocking an attempt by the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League to force a charter school in Elbert County, Colo., to ban religious songs from its holiday concert. The Anti-Defamation League said the school’s program was harming the sense of well-being of Jewish students. But how harmful can it be to sing six Christmas carols, two Hanukkah songs, and a lot of ditties about Rudolph and Frosty? In Plano, Texas, a school district refused to allow a third grader at a class party to hand out candy canes with a religious message attached. The Liberty Legal Institute and the ADF jumped in last week and demanded that the district back down, arguing that “public schools are not zones of religious censorship.” The [Catholic] Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., supported a parent’s legal challenge to the New York City public schools’ policy that allows the Islamic star and crescent and the Jewish menorah (which the Anti-Defamation League concedes is a religious symbol) but not Christian religious symbols such as a Nativity display. The schools’ chancellor offered a tortured argument in court: The menorah has a “secular dimension” large enough to qualify as nonreligious. The judge, who was caustic about the school policy during arguments, is expected to rule any day.... GIVING A WHOLE NEW MEANING TO "HO, HO, HO!" A US Army Infantry Battalian Issues Unique Christmas Card Apparenty, some creative military chap in Iraq who appears rather adept with Adobe Photoshop altered one of Saddam Hussein's captivity photos to give him a more, um, jolly appearance: Christmas Card Shows Captured Leader in Santa Garb This image was quickly adopted and adapted by our fighting men and women for all kinds of other Christmas decorations, which have been proliferating amongst the troops in Iraq. Of course, we suspect that the chief reason American military folk are able to get away with this and other obviously government-sponsored Yuletide endeavors is that the Anti-Christmas Litigation Unit (aka, ACLU for short) has not yet opened up an office in Tikrit. But give them time. Monday, December 22, 2003
U.S. MAJORITY OPPOSES GAY "MARRIAGE": Even Democrats Are Split on the Issue According to polls taken by both CBS News/New York Times and USA Today/CNN/Gallup, 61% of adult Americans oppose gay "marriage" and almost as many oppose legalizing homosexual acts as "rights." Interestingly enough, while the Democratic Party, especially its leading presidential candidates, seem inclined to make support of gay "marriage" part of the party's 2004 platform, according to the CBS News/New York Times poll, 57% of Democrats polled oppose gay "marriage" and 52% are in favor of a Constitutional Amendment defining "marriage" as strictly monogamous and heterosexual. But don't wait for the Democratic leadership to take notice of that as they steer themselves into political oblivion next Fall. |