Oak Lawn, Illinois, bans Christmas

http://store.afa.net/c-23-merry-chris... target="_blank">

Â

Oak Lawn, Illinois bans Christmas from schools Here is a Christmas Plan They Can't Ban! It is time to take a stand. Sponsor your church in Project Merry Christmas. Dear Kinman, It's hard to believe this kind of religious intolerance can happen in America in 2007. The city of Oak Lawn, Illinois has banned any recognition of Christmas in their schools. The ban came after a Muslim woman complained. I don't know what you think about that, but I am more than a little annoyed by those who want to replace Christmas with a secular holiday. It's time Christians take a stand and proclaim to our communities that Christmas is not just a winter holiday focused on materialism, but a "holy day" when we celebrate the birth of our Savior. Here is a Christmas Plan They Can't Ban! http://store.afa.net/c-23-merry-chris... target="_blank"> This year you can remind your community of the true meaning of Christmas by taking a vital leadership role in AFA’s "Project Merry Christmas." Here's how. AFA is making available an attractive button and magnet that carry this thought-provoking, Gospel-focused message: "Merry Christmas. God's Good News." I am asking you to purchase enough buttons for each member of your church and enough magnets for each family to have one. Urge your fellow members to wear their buttons and display the magnets during the entire Christmas season. If you are unable to sponsor your church yourself, ask your Sunday School class to make it a class project. You can even order buttons and magnets to share with co-workers, children in Christian schools, customers, etc. I know that some might think simply wearing a button or displaying a car magnet is a small thing, but God can use small things to make a big point, and to create opportunities to share the Good News. And what a great time to do that at Christmas! I'm asking individuals like you in thousands of communities across the nation to head up this project in their local churches. Your willingness to underwrite the cost for your church and enthusiastically promote this project is the key to making an impact in your area. http://store.afa.net/c-23-merry-chris... target="_blank">Order before November 1 and AFA will pay the shipping. During the upcoming Christmas season, your church can bless your whole community by offering this gentle reminder to everyone you meet: "Merry Christmas. God’s Good News." It's a plan they can't ban! Sincerely, Donald E. Wildmon, Chairman American Family Association P.S. Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends!

It really is mind boggling  that we are held hostage to the rhetoric of representatives of other religions, who have demanded that communities purge themselves of Christian/Judeo practices and holidays.  

Our country was founded on these principles, and no one should be allowed to make proclamations or bans on Christian holidays or symbols.  Why should their protests have any meaning?    They are in our country, and they are demanding that we cater to their rituals.  We would not ridicule their practices in their home countries.  The double standard is deafening.

Many of these other religions are given all kinds of concessions, and any kind of protest towards them is looked upon with deaf ears and scorn.  There is complete tolerance with these religions and zero to minimal  tolerance for Christianity.  Christian organizations  have to fight in court just to keep a symbol in a university, museum or town square.

The thought of not being able to say Merry Christmas or view a nativitiy scene is outrageous.  These project Merry Christmas buttons will help to alleviate some of this terrible intolerance that our country is experiencing.  Those of us who are believers should purchase them. 

Isn't this the one where the Muslims wanted to celebrate Ramadon or is it RamaLamaDingDong and wanted their own special jello and to decorate the whole school?  They said enough is enough we'll just have a generic holiday.  I almost think I'd do without just so them Muslims couldn't get their way.  I miss America the way it was the way it should be.

---

I saw this on Glenn Beck yesterday. He had two Muslim speakers on, one I've seen before, very nice man, very logical, I think he speaks on Fox News alot, the other man I think was a spokesperson for Cair, I think thats the organization. I will try to post his comments, they were frightening if you really listened to him, something about a referance to people upset by this being a bunch of Budweiser drinking people and thats not the America they want it to be, or that they (Muslims)inspire the way America will be. We are being over thrown little by little, By Mexico and Muslims.Who told the people who demand we change our way of life, that they could come here legally or illegaly and demand our Country change?

Back on the Calendar

We have a follow-up from recent item:

Tuesday we told you the school district in Oak Lawn, Illinois had decided to stop celebrating Halloween and Christmas in order to avoid offending Muslims. A special public meeting was held Tuesday night and a decision was made to keep observing those days and add Ramadan to the list.

The Muslim parent who started the controversy says she never intended that the other holidays be scrapped.

---

BECK: All right, for years now, it seems like the war on Christmas has only been getting worse. First, it was the mangers; then it was the trees; and then the word itself. But now a school in Illinois narrowly escaped having to ban the entire holiday.

Last night, the school board in Oak Lawn held an emergency meeting with parents over rumors that children in the district would celebrate "Winter Festivals" instead of Christmas and a "Fall Festival" instead of Halloween. It reportedly all started when a Muslim parent asked for Jell-O to be taken off the school menu and for her children to be separated from others during the Ramadan fast. That was OK with the school board, but somehow or another it morphed into equal celebration of all the holidays and has resulted in some pretty outraged parents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s wrong. You`re in America. I`m sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To try and take our culture and wipe it from the face of the Earth is absolutely wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: So where does practical religious accommodation end and catering to political correctness begin? Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, he is from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and Ahmed Rehab, he is the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations in Chicago.

Let me start with you, Ahmed. You said -- and I want to get this quote right here -- you said that, "Some of the locals don`t come across as incredibly educated. There`s Budweiser anger there." What do you mean by that?

AHMED REHAB, EXEC. DIR., CAIR-CHICAGO: I mean it is not the type of America that we are aspiring to have. It is not the pluralistic, inclusive, educated America that we try to teach our children to embrace. They`re trying to exclude Muslims from celebrating their festivities. No Muslim involved in this raucous at any point wanted to remove Christmas or Hanukkah or even Halloween from the school festivities. All they wanted to do was to bring in Ramadan. And some of the parents -- who were essentially racist -- felt that this threatened their very being and decided to take the decorations down, couldn`t tolerate that.

BECK: It`s cool to throw around the "racist" word, but let`s try to keep this a civilized discussion here, because there are a lot of people that are a little upset, and it`s not just at Muslims. I mean, all the religions are upset at each other for trying to trample on the others. And I have no problem. If you want to be separated because of a fast for Ramadan or you want your children to be removed, that`s fine, but what about the Jell-O thing? I mean, you`re going to -- nobody can have Jell-O because your children can`t have Jell-O?

REHAB: Christians are welcome to have pork-fortified Jell-O if they want. Muslims don`t have to have that. Jews don`t have to have that.

(CROSSTALK)

BECK: All right, so they don`t have to have the Jell-O.

REHAB: Well, exactly, but you`d need to offer a different type of Jell-O that doesn`t have gelatin, pork gelatin, in it, and give that option to the Muslim and Jewish students.

BECK: All right.

Zuhdi, the mom just wanted to hang decorations for Ramadan. That`s how it all started. She just wanted to hang decorations for Ramadan. What`s wrong with that?

DR. M. ZUHDI JASSER, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY: Well, I think educating people about Ramadan -- you know, I`m fasting. I always answer the question about, why am I not drinking water? Why am I not eating? I think education is important.

But decorations and trying to impose sort of a celebratory phenomenon I think crosses the line of church and state, not to mention that, in Muslim societies, we certainly celebrate the end of Ramadan, but during Ramadan, actually, I think what`s happening here is you have Muslims who are demanding to be American rather than Muslims that happen to be American.

And, you know, it`s interesting that they seem to find little battles to impose their political stances and balkanization of Muslim identity. And I really think it`s not the way to approach our current situation, when so many Americans are fearing so many things about transnational Islamism.

BECK: Would you like to respond to that, Ahmed?

REHAB: Yeah, there is absolutely no imposition of anyone`s culture here. I think Mr. Zuhdi Jasser is being rather hypocritical when he says that it`s OK to have Christmas in a 50-50 school -- 50 percent of the population in that school are Muslim, 50 percent are other things, including Christian. And if you can`t tell how the children...

(CROSSTALK)

REHAB: ... and turn around and tell to the other half of the kids, listen, you`re somehow second-class citizens, your festivities are not celebrated.

JASSER: So you`d like to see America turned into a competition of holidays, from the holidays for Buddhism and Sikh and Hindu? And should we have all of a sudden every other weekend a celebration for...

(CROSSTALK)

REHAB: I will not even call that a leap of faith. That is a leap of folly. Nobody`s making that giant leap.

JASSER: There is one holiday in this country that has a religious base, and it`s Christmas.

(CROSSTALK)

REHAB: We`re not asking for malls -- listen, we`re not asking for malls to start celebrating Ramadan. We`re not asking for schools where there are a couple of Muslims to have anything beyond an educational...

(CROSSTALK)

BECK: If you happen -- Ahmed, if you happen to go up where there`s 50 percent, let`s just -- I`m just making this up -- 50 percent Wiccan, and it was all Muslim before that, but there`s 50 percent Wiccan, you cool with, you know, doing the pagan stuff in the school?

REHAB: Well, I think it`s a preposterous comparison, because...

BECK: No, no, sir.

REHAB: Well, listen...

BECK: You know, 50 years ago, it would have been ridiculous to say -- it would have been ridiculous, sir, to say 50 years ago, to say that about America being...

(CROSSTALK)

REHAB: ... religion...

BECK: OK. So in other words, you`re saying that Wiccans -- are you saying, sir, that Wiccan is not a religion? Are you saying that Wiccans are not a legitimate religion?

REHAB: It is to some people, but it`s not comparable to Christianity, Islam or Judaism or any of the other large faiths in this country.

BECK: Zuhdi, thank you very much. Ahmed, as always, thank you.

Where am I wrong? I think there are huge double standards in our country. If we`re going to put foot baths in our schools for Muslim students, which we are in some colleges, we should be able to put the Ten Commandments in the front of our courthouse. Do you agree or disagree? Go to CNN.com/glenn right now and cast your vote.

You Really Really need to read this to the end.

Muslim Brotherhood means for the U.S.

Memo lays bare group's plans to destroy U.S. from within
11:17 AM CDT on Sunday, September 9, 2007

"Our strategy is this," President Bush said last month. "We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America."

He was talking about jihadists, of course. And Mr. Bush is behind the curve. The president apparently missed the smoking-gun 1991 document his own Justice Department introduced into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas. The FBI captured it in a raid on a Muslim suspect's home in Virginia.

This "explanatory memorandum," as it's titled, outlines the "strategic goal" for the North American operation of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). Here's the key paragraph:

The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.

The entire 18-page platform outlines a plan for the long haul. It prescribes the Muslim Brotherhood's comprehensive plan to set down roots in civil society. It begins by both founding and taking control of American Muslim organizations, for the sake of unifying and educating the U.S. Muslim community – this to prepare it for the establishment of a global Islamic state governed by sharia.

It sounds like a conspiracy theory out of a bad Hollywood movie – but it's real. Husain Haqqani, head of Boston University's Center for International Relations and a former Islamic radical, confirms that the Brotherhood "has run most significant Muslim organizations in the U.S." as part of the plan outlined in the strategy paper.

The HLF trial is exposing for the first time how the international Muslim Brotherhood – whose Palestinian division is Hamas – operates as a self-conscious revolutionary vanguard in the United States. The court documents indicate that many leading Muslim-American organizations – including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim American Society – are an integral part of the Brotherhood's efforts to wage jihad against America by nonviolent means.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an affiliation of at least 70 Islamist organizations around the world, all tracing their heritage to the original cell, founded in Egypt in 1928. Its credo: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Sayyid Qutb, hanged by the Egyptian government in 1966 as a revolutionary, remains its ideological godfather. His best-known work, Milestones, calls for Muslims to wage violent holy war until Islamic law governs the entire world.

According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation, establishing the Brotherhood in the United States has been a 40-year project that has worked mostly underground – even beneath the notice of many Muslims. Richard Clarke, the former top U.S. national security official, told the Senate in 2003 that the Muslim Brotherhood is the common thread linking terrorist fundraising schemes in the United States – which likely explains why so many mainstream American Muslim organizations were named by the feds as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the HLF trial.

Is this just alarmist paranoia? Not at all.

This matters because high-profile organizations with roots explicitly in the Muslim Brotherhood have successfully established themselves in a paramount position to define Islam in America according to a radical politicized model. And they've done so without the American public having the slightest idea about their real agenda. Indeed, the Bush administration is unwittingly helping the Islamist cause by including their leaders in public events, thus conferring them legitimacy. On Labor Day weekend, the same Department of Justice that's presenting evidence of the ISNA's involvement with radical Islam at the Dallas trial sponsored a booth at – wait for it – ISNA's national convention in suburban Chicago.

Look, no rational person believes America is going to exchange the Constitution for a caliphate. Rational people aren't the point. As the London subway bombings showed, even a tiny cell of committed radicals can kill a lot of people. Mustafa Saied, an American Muslim who left the Brotherhood, told the Tribune that he worried about the radicalism the Brotherhood inculcated in its membership here. "With the extreme element," he said, "you never know when that ticking time bomb will go off."

As long as they commit no crimes, CAIR, ISNA and the other Brotherhood-related groups have the right to advocate for their beliefs. But they don't have the right to escape critical scrutiny, and they deserve informed opposition. Courageous Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy are sounding the alarm about radical Islam's stealth takeover of U.S. Muslim institutions. Why are the news media ignoring this? Fear of being called Islamophobic?

This has got to stop. Six years after 9/11, we're still asleep. Islamic radicals have declared war on us – and some are fighting here in what looks like a fifth column. Read their strategy document. It's there in black and white, for those with eyes to see.

---

All of the above demonstrates why LEGAL immigration is a problem, too.  Most moslems come in legally and then breed like mexicans. Instead of sitting up our soldiers as clay pigeons on a nation building do-gooder program in Iraq (and Afghanistan), we should let the Sunnis and Shias kill each other--which they were doing all well and fine without us--and make OUR country as inhospitable and uncomfortable for moslems as possible. No moslem holidays, no mosques, deport anyone in question, and shove Christianity right down their throat.  They will holler, then they will leave.

I went to the CAIR web site and one of there action alerts was for a bill in June they wanted passed that makes two days, official holidays for all N. Y. city children, here we go, If the kids were out on every groups holidays, when would they be in school? I bet the schools will get so overwhelmed and fustrated they will take away all holidays and end up giving the kids a certian amount of personal days a year. How can everyone be accomidated?

It is all part of "their" larger plan, and it must be stopped.  I agree that legal immigration needs to be capped as well.  It has become a wedge for Muslims to enter at will and progress with their overall goals. 

Paul55- No moslem holidays, no mosques, deport anyone in question, and shove Christianity right down their throat.  They will holler, then they will leave.

They are so bold and brazen in these attempts, and we seem to be the only people who will combat their tactics and speak out about it.  It is just getting to be beyond ludicrous!

 

I think we'd really ought to use the new Austrailian approach as it sounds very good and very doable.

---

Too many people are disallusioned with organized religion I think and have offences and will either agree with this type of thing or just ignore it. Alot of People see christianity as a bad reflection of God. Its sad but mostly everyone I know considers themselves christian but dont act anything like it. It seems to be their time for law groups like ACLU to play on this and use it.

---

Think about it.  Can you really ban something that truly has transpired in History?  Saying you don't believe in God doesn't make it true.  Saying Christ wasn't born doesn't make that a fact either.  Is Christmas really about the snowmen, and the lighted trees, santa claus, who gets the most, or most expensive toys, games, computers, clothing, or jewelry, or a new car, or whatever, and all the hyped up sales and hoopla that transpires every year?  Or is it about the birth of Jesus Christ the Saviour of all mankind?  You cannot ban that, anymore than we can make the universe disappear.  Maybe it's only just time for a reality check and not being overly reactive?

Gerald47 said: Think about it.  Can you really ban something that truly has transpired in History?  Saying you don't believe in God doesn't make it true.  Saying Christ wasn't born doesn't make that a fact either.  Is Christmas really about the snowmen, and the lighted trees, santa claus, who gets the most, or most expensive toys, games, computers, clothing, or jewelry, or a new car, or whatever, and all the hyped up sales and hoopla that transpires every year?  Or is it about the birth of Jesus Christ the Saviour of all mankind?  You cannot ban that, anymore than we can make the universe disappear.  Maybe it's only just time for a reality check and not being overly reactive?

That's all certainly true, but for me it's about being forced to give up our traditions for this political correctness bs.  It's way out of hand.

---

FireWing said:

Gerald47 said: Think about it. Can you really ban something that truly has transpired in History? Saying you don't believe in God doesn't make it true. Saying Christ wasn't born doesn't make that a fact either. Is Christmas really about the snowmen, and the lighted trees, santa claus, who gets the most, or most expensive toys, games, computers, clothing, or jewelry, or a new car, or whatever, and all the hyped up sales and hoopla that transpires every year? Or is it about the birth of Jesus Christ the Saviour of all mankind? You cannot ban that, anymore than we can make the universe disappear. Maybe it's only just time for a reality check and not being overly reactive?

That's all certainly true, but for me it's about being forced to give up our traditions for this political correctness bs. It's way out of hand.

 

Firewing, Don't know if you've ever heard the joke about the young bull and the old bull. I think it's somewhat applicable here. Like I said, maybe it's time for a reality check. Traditions do not gain one's entrance into God's Kingdom. His birth, His ministry, His death and Resurrection, our acceptance and belief in this do, and is what the real tradition of Christmas should be about. It will not be banned. It cannot be banned. We should take Joy in this fact and let those that desire to suppress us know that Christ cannot be overpowered, extinguished, or banned. The rocks will cry out if necessary. Invite a Muslim over for dinner, give them a gift that exemplifies what we as Christians uphold, show them if possible that the love of Christ lives within us, and this is the true Spirit of Christmas. All of the aforementioned hoopla stuff in my prior post is what I think many that have not come to know Christ is what they think we're all about. That can be harmful, and hurting, because we know that that is not what Christmas is all about. Once He is the focal point then the physical traditions that we hold dear are just dressing and only a part of the merriment, but can really be done without if truly necessary. Of course we do not want to dispense with them, but we must place Christ first too. I know you know this, but do those who don't, understand?

Gerald47 said:

FireWing said:

Gerald47 said: Think about it. Can you really ban something that truly has transpired in History? Saying you don't believe in God doesn't make it true. Saying Christ wasn't born doesn't make that a fact either. Is Christmas really about the snowmen, and the lighted trees, santa claus, who gets the most, or most expensive toys, games, computers, clothing, or jewelry, or a new car, or whatever, and all the hyped up sales and hoopla that transpires every year? Or is it about the birth of Jesus Christ the Saviour of all mankind? You cannot ban that, anymore than we can make the universe disappear. Maybe it's only just time for a reality check and not being overly reactive?

That's all certainly true, but for me it's about being forced to give up our traditions for this political correctness bs. It's way out of hand.

 

Firewing, Don't know if you've ever heard the joke about the young bull and the old bull. I think it's somewhat applicable here. Like I said, maybe it's time for a reality check. Traditions do not gain one's entrance into God's Kingdom. His birth, His ministry, His death and Resurrection, our acceptance and belief in this do, and is what the real tradition of Christmas should be about. It will not be banned. It cannot be banned. We should take Joy in this fact and let those that desire to suppress us know that Christ cannot be overpowered, extinguished, or banned. The rocks will cry out if necessary. Invite a Muslim over for dinner, give them a gift that exemplifies what we as Christians uphold, show them if possible that the love of Christ lives within us, and this is the true Spirit of Christmas. All of the aforementioned hoopla stuff in my prior post is what I think many that have not come to know Christ is what they think we're all about. That can be harmful, and hurting, because we know that that is not what Christmas is all about. Once He is the focal point then the physical traditions that we hold dear are just dressing and only a part of the merriment, but can really be done without if truly necessary. Of course we do not want to dispense with them, but we must place Christ first too. I know you know this, but do those who don't, understand?

 

I really do know what you're saying and I agree that we should, and many of us do, focus on  birth of our Savior.  And spreading the word of the glory of Christ is something that we should do and is beautiful, but it's the encroachment on our society, even the secular traditions, of the various and sundry groups that want to push their agendas on the majority that is disturbing to me.  This has happened in so many other countries and minority begins to feel more and more powerful and demand more and more consessions.  And it's never good.

---

I agree, Christians should welcome people of other faiths and show them respect, but this is different, I dont fear Muslims, I have faith in my God and will never turn from my religion, Christians do not demand things such as, Remember when the Muslims moved in next to the man in Katy Texas and sent him a letter telling him he needed to get rid of his pigs because they are offensive to them? The clerk in Target who will not touch or sell any pork products, The demand for foot baths? The demand for seprate places to pray at the airports? The taxi drivers at the airports refusing to drive anyone if they have any liquior with them, such as a bottle of wine?The list goes on and on, Christians turn the other cheek constantly, we ask nothing, just the right to believe, no prayers in school for us but rooms for muslim children to pray, no more God bless you in school when someone sneezes, I'm done, If we cannot hold our faith up and practice it, why am i bowing down to them. Fair is fair,