Merry Christmas Denver
By Monte Kuligowski (12/15/04)
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas almost everywhere you go. You’ll have to look hard and listen carefully, however, to discern the real reason for the season. Nowadays you’ll scarcely hear the word “Christmas” at Christmastime. It has become a bad word among the enlightened. Even the greeting, “Merry Christmas,” is being swallowed up by the more politically correct (and bland), “Happy Holidays,” or “Season’s Greetings.”
Among the many bizarre examples was this year’s “Parade of Lights” in Denver, Colorado. A local pastor, George Morrison, was denied entrance of a float because it was to bear the offensive words, “Merry Christmas,” and dreaded yuletide hymns were to be sung. Imagine that!
The parade is an annual Denver event featuring several floats with plenty of festive symbols, from Santa and reindeer, to snowmen and gingerbread men. This year the parade hosted an “international procession,” which included a float by the Two Spirit Society, a group that celebrates “gay and lesbian American Indians as holy people.” The crowd was also enchanted by performers of the Lion Dance, who danced in the Chinese New Year tradition to “chase away evil spirits” and welcome good luck for the year.
Those religious themes were okay because, as the parade’s spokesman, Michael Krikorian, clarified, the parade simply doesn’t allow “direct religious themes.” Direct religious themes, apparently, would include any reference to the baby born in the manger, the singing of Christmas hymns and the mentioning of the holiday’s name. Mr. Krikorian gets no argument from me that homosexual Indians and dancing spiritualists would constitute indirect religious themes. In fact you could say these themes are directly inapposite to the theme of Christmas.
“We want to avoid that specific religious message out of respect for other religions in the region,” Krikorian explained. “It could be construed as disrespectful to other people who enjoy a parade each year.”
Hello, earth to Mr. Krikorian! Who is disrespecting whom? Are we to conclude that the specific religious message of the Savior’s birth is disrespectful to the Confucian, but a religious ceremony to chase away evil spirits is not disrespectful to the Christian? The same goes for the Two Spirit Society. If an ordinary Coloradan can tolerate seeing the Society’s float traversing among Santa Clauses and snowmen, I think a big, brave homosexual Indian can handle the words, “Merry Christmas.” Most often, however, it’s not the dancing shaman or the stoic homosexual taking offense over “Merry Christmas,” but the anti-Christian liberals of the world controlling the parades, the city councils, the schools and the culture.
As Pastor Morrison pointed out: “By holding [the parade] in December, it’s assumed by a majority of the people that the reasons the lights are up is the . . . celebration of the birth of Christ. In America, that’s our tradition, that’s what the holiday is about.” If the Krikorians of the world have their way, it won’t be our tradition much longer.
The large crowd that gathers in Denver to see the parade, for the most part, is made up of people who return home to their Christmas lights, decorations, trees and most importantly, their little nativity scenes revealing the true message of Christmas. These are the people Mr. Krikorian should be nervous to disrespect. For without them, there would be no Denver Christmas parade.
Question: What does Santa say at the Denver “parade of lights?” Answer: Ho, ho, ho! Merry holiday and happy Chinese New Year!
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