National Press Blasts Our City
By Erik Rush
(Originally appeared in Fort Collins Coloradoan, December 20,
2006)
This might indeed be the most enjoyable column I’ll have the opportunity to write for the Coloradoan; I get to expound upon what a pack of race-baiting, craven, self-serving swine the national press is, yet still focus on a local issue! Such a deal!
Well, by now most you have heard about the debate relative to the “War on Christmas.” America is split around 33.3% as to those who believe it exists, those who don’t, and those who aren’t sure or don’t care. It’s become a perennial media favorite over the last few years.
Now the chickens (or the swine) have really come home to roost. In his December 17 article, “Offering Support for a Menorah, Unofficially”, The New York Times’ Martin Forstenzer painted a picture of Fort Collins as an intolerant, anti-Semitic community, focusing on “the refusal by Fort Collins to allow a menorah to be displayed downtown during Hanukkah, near a Christmas tree and other Christmas displays.”
One of the article’s talking points addressed City Council’s concern – given the Supreme Court’s view of Christmas trees as “generic secular displays” – that opening up to one religious display would reasonably incite any and every religious group, quasi-religious group and cult to demand equal treatment.
In a letter to the Coloradoan, Rosalie Mylott of Fort Collins said: “The community at large would welcome the menorah.”
Well, of course it would. I’d wager there are only a handful of people in town who wouldn’t. Unfortunately, the barriers to “just saying yes” are complicated if not numerous.
“I think the City Council is trying to cover themselves legally, but they’re shortsighted about the long-term implications of how this impacts groups,” said Jill Kuhn of Fort Collins in the Times article, and she’s probably right to a degree. With regard to all displays and things aesthetic, there are agreements and conditions in place between the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), the city, and area business owners (these might be likened to community covenants). Changing them will be a time-consuming and tedious task.
Then there’s this pesky regulation that prohibits no unattended displays standing overnight in the area. No one wanted Old Town to look like a dump, after all. This regulation is not menorah-specific. Is it possible that we might have brought on an unintended consequence, painting ourselves into a corner with the wide brushes of law, regulation and politically-correct sensitivities?
As with the recent Christmas tree/Sea-Tac Airport controversy, there is of course the customary klatsch of civil attorneys poised to napalm and strafe Fort Collins at the first signal from Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik (of the Chabad Jewish Center), who has heretofore shown a great deal of class concerning the whole thing.
In typical fashion, the Times (which many Americans now realize is only slightly to the right of Izvestia), viewed reality itself, the expressed sympathies of Fort Collins’ residents, mayor and Council, as well as cooperation between the city and the Chabad Center as non sequitur. The menorah won’t be allowed, so we’re all a bunch of Nazis – a line of reasoning Joseph Goebbels would have appreciated.
Which brings me to the crux of the matter: The far Left’s program of undermining all aspects of Christianity in America does indeed exist. I hope that seeing the biggest of big-city newspapers come in and stir up the pot convinced at least some of you. For the last 40 years, the national press has done more to foment class, ethnic and religious tension than any separatist group, for purposes both ideological and financial.
What was that Times’ motto? “All the News that’s Fun to Print”?
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