Let's Cut Through All The Crap

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. It is a Christmas tree not a holiday tree. It is Christmas holidays. It is Christmas for anyone who wishes to celebrate it and they don't have to worry if someone is offended.

Respecting Christmas

December 16, 2006
Toronto Star

Political correctness prevailed over good sense this week when an Ontario judge ordered a Christmas tree removed from the lobby of a Toronto courthouse for fear it might offend non-Christians.

The decision has rightly drawn criticism – and not just from Christians.

"Our society guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion," said Rabbi Mendel Kaplan of the Chabad@Flamingo Jewish community centre in Thornhill, who called Justice Marion Cohen's decision to move the tree to an administrative corridor "a terrible thing."

And Farzana Hassan, president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said "we should ban political correctness, not the Christmas tree."

They are right. Canada is a diverse and tolerant society, and part and parcel of that is respecting the many religious and cultural traditions that Canadians celebrate.

Christmas, one of the most important Christian holidays, is one of them. So are Hanukkah, Diwali, Ramadan and the many other rituals observed across the country.

Each year, attempts are made to sanitize Christmas. Some public schools have turned Christmas concerts into "holiday" concerts by replacing traditional carols with secular songs and getting rid of any reference to Jesus.

Likewise, bureaucrats in 2002 tried to rename the Christmas tree in front of Toronto's city hall a "holiday tree." Then-mayor Mel Lastman, who is Jewish, restored "Christmas" to the tree and tabled a bylaw barring it from being called anything else.

Surely Canadians of all faiths are sufficiently tolerant to make room for, and share in, the celebrations and traditions of others.

Premier Dalton McGuinty has called the judge's decision "unfortunate" and rightly said no one should be "asked to abandon their traditions," noting that Queen's Park marks Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and other faiths' celebrations. "Let's share in those opportunities, let's better understand those celebrations," he added.

Sharing and respecting all traditions are the reasons why the Christmas tree should be put back in the courthouse lobby where it belongs.