UNC libraries to forgo Christmas trees
The Charlotte Observer
Chapel Hill library chief says staffers complained about the display.
CHAPEL HILL
For as long as anyone can remember, Christmas trees adorned with lights and ornaments have greeted holiday season visitors to UNC Chapel Hill’s two main libraries.
Not this year.
The trees, which have stood in the lobby areas of Wilson and Davis libraries each December, were kept in storage this year at the behest of Sarah Michalak, the associate provost for university libraries.
Michalak’s decision followed several years of queries and complaints from library employees and patrons bothered by the Christian display, Michalak said this week.
Michalak said that banishing the Christmas displays was not an easy decision but that she asked around to library colleagues at Duke, N.C. State and elsewhere and found no other one where Christmas trees were displayed.
Aside from the fact that a UNC Chapel Hill library is a public facility, Michalak said, libraries are places where information from all corners of the world and all belief systems is offered without judgment. Displaying one particular religion’s symbols is antithetical to that philosophy, she said.
“We strive in our collection to have a wide variety of ideas,” she said. “It doesn’t seem right to celebrate one particular set of customs.”
Michalak, chief librarian for four years, said at least a dozen library employees have complained over the last few years about the display. She hasn’t heard similar criticism from students, though they may have voiced concerns to other library staff.
Public libraries generally shy away from creating displays promoting any single religion, said Catherine Mau, deputy director of the Durham County library system, where poinsettias provided by a library booster group provide holiday cheer.
Wild Thing’s comment……..
Totally unacceptable, I think people like this need their head examined. I will say it, I could care what her stupid excuse it, it comes down to wanting to appease Muslims.
No one was ever concerned with this before as much as they are today and it is stupid and besides Muslims have their own holiday’s.
…Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Yes, In Albany NY’s Washington Park tey are going to have “Holiday Lights”. It really sucks, everybody knows that they are Christmas Lights. These BS politicians and organizers of such events don’t have a clue. In the name of political correctness and not wanting to offend a minority of people they seem unconcerned with offending the majority. I am sure that the majority of those of the Jewish religion do not feel offended by these Christian Celebrations, decorations and symbols any more than most Christians are not offended by Jewish Holidays and symbols.
*Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*The politically correct police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas – no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say*
*December 25th is just a ” Holiday “.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
*At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was nowhere to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears*
*You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate “Winter Break” under your “Dream Tree”*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday*
Fact; America is a Christian country founded on Christian ideas and morals. We are giving that up to appease some vocal miorities.
Bob A. Sadly some of those claiming to be offended by public recognition of Christinity have been Jews. I realize they are activists and troublemakers and are a minority of the Jewish community, but they are part of the reason prayer was taken out of school. Others complaining and filing suits against Christian displays are atheists and of course muslims.
Not to be left out are the worst, those weak willed Christians that fall prey to PC and won’t defend Christianity.
Duane, that was really great! Very creative!
This PC crap has got to stop! It’s giving me migraines over all the worry that if I say Merry Christmas I might offend someone. Well, guess what, those PC junkies are offending me! I love Christmas and the music and the twinkling lights and a big old real Christmas tree with lots of decorations my children have made for me and reading the story of Jesus’s birth and watching A Christmas Carol with George C Scott on Christmas Eve and loving my children, as the Bible tells me to.
MERRY CHRISTMAS to the humbug ACLU (Atheists Communists Liberals Universal)… Frohliche Weihnachten …
NOEL … FELIZ NAVIDAD … HAPPY HANUKKAH …
BLESSED EPIPHANY … and HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS! The greatest time of the year 12-6-08 thru 1-6-09!
PS: Artificial pre-lit fake holiday tree my ass… O Tannenbaum O Tannenbaum 2008.
Bob A., I agree, none of my Jewish friends are offended at all with Christmas lights or calling them that.
That is really wrong not to call the season what it is and want to make it omit the reason we have Christmas.
Duane, oh wow that is really good. Thank you so much.
Tom, I agree so much. The oens wanting to take it away are horrible and wrong but the ones that say they are Christians and go along with the PC baloney imo are even worse. They are saying yes by their agreeing with the PC stuff to just get along and that will only give the left power more and more.
Lynn, me too and I will be a rebel about this. hahaa I have no intention of ever giving in on this. If they don’t like it and tell me off I will let them know how I feel.
Darth, giggle, good one. That is what I do, I jsut keep saying Merry Christmas and if someone does not like it I say it again with a big smile on my face. Tuff if they are offended.
Again what has happened to our country. I am waxing nostalgic again, but I remember, as a kid, going to Downtown Buffalo in the 50’s the day after Thanksgiving, the whole downtown was decorated music playing everywhere even the light poles had decorations on them. Total strangers would say, Merry Christmas to you, and you say it back, nobody complained everybody had a good time, Nativity Scenes everywhere, all the big stores were dressed up for the holiday, Christmas that is, moving manikins in the windows, Trains running all over the place. They even had a Lionel train store, one of my favorites, by the way.
But thats all gone, now white lights and not that many of them, everybody is afraid of offending someone, it is terrible.
Glad you enjoyed the poem. I wish I could provide a citation for it, but I do not know the author.
Duane, that is ok, I understand and sometimes that happens. I posted a poem one time and could not find the author, and another time a poem said author unknown and several months later a women came by my blog and said her Aunt had written one of the poems. And she was just glad it was being seen and read.