City of Chicago: “Christianity is a Cancer on the Soul of the City and We Will Have it Out!”
The Associated Press is reporting that the City of Chicago has threatened the organizers of an annual German festival, Christkindlmarket, over one of their sponsors. This sponsor, according to the City of Chicago, would be “insensitive to the many people of different faiths… [and] contrary to acceptable advertising standards…”
Was this sponsor the KKK? The World Church of the Creator? No. The sponsor was a movie studio, New Line Cinema. New Line Cinema sponsored the event (until their money was turned down because of the threats of the City of Chicago) with advertisements of the movie, “The Nativity Story”.
Predictably, the City tried to hide behind the “separation of church and state” doctrine. Skipping past the fact that the First Amendment requires institutional separation, not the purging of all things religious, the characterization of New Line Cinema as a religious institution is somewhat contrived.
Some of the movies New Line has put out include such religious classics as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Snakes on a Plane”, the Austin Powers series, and “Blow.” New Line is a thoroughly secular company that produces movies that range from the pornographic, to the flippant gore, to children’s movies. They’ve decided to make a movie about the Nativity, an event that is indisputably consequential in the history of mankind no matter what you believe.
The City of Chicago could have had a problem sponsoring a festival called “Christkindlmarket” but they don’t. They could have a problem with the nativity scenes that take place in this festival, but they don’t because they include celebrations of other faiths. They had a problem that the included a small ad from New Line, who paid for it, for the movie “The Nativity Story”.
There is no outright religious imagery at all in that ad. No crosses, no mention of religion, only the name of a film the references the same event celebrated by Christkindlmarket.
There is no War on Christmas, the War is on Christians. Organizations such as the ACLU and the City of Chicago hold that they do not have the right to exist, to live their lives as they see fit, nor speak their mind in anyway where someone might overhear them. As was put on Captain’s Quarters blog, “they reject on culture in order to keep from offending others.” Diversity and multiculturalism means a certain culture needs to be purged from public view in the City of Chicago.
Even when Christians choose to create their own cities and live by their own rules, the ACLU brings out the big guns to stop it. If one in a hundred thousand pharmacists want to live by their conscience and not dispense pills to murder babies, Illinois issues “emergency laws” to stop them. It isn’t enough that 99,999 of 100,000 pharmacists would fill the script, it’s that there is one pharmacist out there who has values that need to be excised from society as if it were a cancer.
The City of Chicago’s decision has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with separation of Church and State or multiculturalism. It is censorship, pure and simple. It’s yet another declaration of war on Christianity’s right to exist.
John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for Blogcritics and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is a freelance columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans in Tanzania with education.
He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.
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Posted by John Bambenek on November 28, 2006 2:11 pm
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Church And State, News
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4 Responses to “City of Chicago: “Christianity is a Cancer on the Soul of the City and We Will Have it Out!””
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Syndicate Me
“an event that is indisputably consequential in the history of mankind no matter what you believe.”
Actually, if you believe that the virgin birth story is a lie (which theologians understand is the case), then it’s indisputably INconsequential. Cram it.
Good post! Way to get the word out.
Pudendiform Grimace,
Virgin births occur in nature just not to the human race. You also have a problem with artistic freedom? I would say you are probably an Atheist out to force your religion on others. You intolerant bigots are all the same no matter what religion you claim to serve. I may be wrong about the “bigot” label but you do sound like one in your comment
.
Let’s assume for the moment, and it’s an assumption that’s in no small part running against the grain of the facts, that the Virgin Birth and the existence of Jesus Christ was a lie.
There are currently roughly 1.5-2 billion Christians on this rock we call Earth. The Holy Roman Empire exerted great sway over the political happenings of Europe for centuries. This begins to barely scratch the surface of the influence and magnitude of Christian influence on world history.
Even if the event is “just a story”, that story spawned an entire religion that to this day 2000 years later exerts no small degree of influence in every corner of the world.
To ignore it is to disregard reality for a lie.
Pudendiform Grimace, “Cram it” is that the most eloquent way of expressing your disagreement with JCB’s statment? Care to back up your statement with facts, which Theologians under stand that (granted, I’m sure there are some, so it should not be hard to find)? What give you the right to call someone else’s faith a lie? You show us exactly what is wrong with the left’s view of freedom of speach and expression. Namely anyone that has the same view as you has that freedom, those who don’t are wrong and can “Cram it”. Wow, bet that razor sharp wit of yours comes in handy, in swaying people’s views.