Christmas Lives in Cincinnati: "Extremely intolerant Unitarians, God's singing vegetable, and other stories from mainstream media sources around the world."

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Christmas Lives in Cincinnati

"Extremely intolerant Unitarians, God's singing vegetable, and other stories from mainstream media sources around the world."

Ted Olsen

[ posted 4/1/2001 12:00AM ]

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Christmas in April
We just got done celebrating Easter, and it's still three months until those annoying "Christmas in July" sales, but Weblog is sure that some stores are already selling ornaments for Christmas 2001. In any case, Christmas came early this year—for Christmas itself. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case of a Cleveland attorney who argued that allowing Christmas as a state holiday violated the First Amendment. In 1999, you may remember, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ruled against the case as well—in rhyme. It read, in part:

We are all better for Santa
The Easter Bunny too
And maybe the great pumpkin
To name just a few!
An extra day off
Is hardly high treason
It may be spent as you wish
Regardless of reason.
…
There is room in this country
And in all our hearts too
For different convictions
And a day off too!

(The full poem is available at the end of this 1999 Cincinnati Post article.) The lawyer, Richard Ganulin, said he was disappointed with the decision not to hear the case, but the Cincinnati Posteditorialized that it was the right way to go, calling his efforts "persistent, conscientious—and alas, misguided." "Giving people the day off work does not impose Christian beliefs on people of other faiths," the editorial said. "It merely shows a practical acceptance of existing culture."

Unitarians split, saying church is "extremely intolerant" of those who actually want to talk about God Of all the things you could possibly call a Unitarian Universalist, "extremely intolerant" would be just about the worst. But at least two dozen dissidents who are leaving the church say that's exactly what it is. So they're leaving, and forming the American Unitarian Association. "An organization that believes ...