From here:
After eliminating denominational education from schools, the Quebec government announced plans Friday to extend its ban on religious instruction to toddlers.
The new policy will make it illegal for workers in the province’s network of subsidized daycares to teach their charges, aged five and under, about a specific religion. Teaching religious songs, including many Christmas carols, will be off limits, as will crafts with a religious connotation. Government inspectors will enforce the rules beginning next June.
“I want the young Quebecers who attend our daycare services to do so in a spirit of openness to others and diversity,” Family Minister Yolande James said as she unveiled the changes in Montreal.
Not all religions are being expunged, however: promoting a spirit of openness to others and diversity is itself an expression of religion, exhorting, as it does, submission to the contemporary pop-morality dogma that openness and diversity are, a priori, superior to their opposites.
On a sllightly similar note…
The other day I purchased some items from HMV (don’t intend to pick on HMV specifically, just this happened to be the store that this happened at). After paying for my purchase I wished the store clerk a “Merry Chirstmas” to which she wished me “Happy holidays”. I deided to press the point and replied “no, you wish me a Merry Christmas”. She responded that she was not allowed to. So I pointed out to her that what I had just purchased was Christmas presents. She than said that she did not know if I were Christian Jew or something else. So I reminded her that I had wished her a Merry Christmas. At this point she finally wished me a Merry Christmas.
If she had not I was prepared to take the issue to the store manager, and if this person refused to wish me a Merry Christmas that I would than return my purchase for a full refund.
The point I would like to make is simply this. Retail stores, such as HMV, make a huge profit from our Christian tradition of exchanging Christmas presents. They should therefore respect our Christian religion, at the very least be willing to wish us a Merry Christmas, especially when we wish them a Merry Christmas first. If these stores continue to treat Christmas like any other “long weekend” they should not be surprised when the Christian tradition of exchanging Christmas presents comes to an end, and much of their profits dissapear.
Don’t think it can happen? Tell me what the “Civic long weekend” in August in Ontario was originally for. Or how about why we Canadians continue to have a long weekend near the end of May.
I think treating a store employee in that manner is a terrible witness.
Especially when the employee was carrying out the reasonable requirement that not every customer is to be assumed to be Christian and therefore appreciative of a Christmas greeting. Surely there are worthier battles to be fought than over the wording of greetings by store employees.
Hello Kate and Scott.
Both of you seem to have missunderstood what I did. Never did I treat the store employee with any disrespect. The point that I was trying to make is that it is wrong for retailers, especially big chains, to have official policies that ban the wishing someone a Merry Christmas, even when the customer says it first. The stores are more than happy to make huge profits by taking advantage of our Christian tradition, while at the same time showing absolutely no respect for Christianity. As another example, does anyone have children who would like to be attending Church every Sunday but cannot because the retailer they work for schedules them to work Sundays (especially during Advent)?
I think the stores are taking advantage not of our Christian tradition but of the secular winter giftfest that is the month of December. Its connection to the celebration of the Word Made Flesh has long ago dissolved; it’s now a warm, snuggly green-and-red feel-good mini-Oprah’s-Favorite-Things with a hot cup of cheer. And oh, peace on earth while you’re at it, and it’s really all for the children, isn’t it? (I’m not cynical much, am I?) So what they tell their employees to say doesn’t bother me a whole lot.
As for Sunday working, that’s often something that can be worked out with the employer. Or not (I had a mandatory job-related meeting last Sunday that forced me to miss church, but mea culpa was not getting up early and going to an 8:00 or 9:00 Mass).
Scott, I think you are spot on. What we’ve tried to do in our household is to celebrate St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra as our gift giving day on December 6. We even had the good Saint stop by, complete with Mitre and staff to play games and hand out gifts to the children. We can then hopefully down-play gifts/Santa at Christmas and focus on the incarnation.
Would you find someone saying to you “No, you wish me happy holidays” disrespectful? What you did was disrespectful. You bullied her.
Well Kate, you were not there, and you do not know the tone of the conversation. Frankly, you are reading something into what I posted that is simply not there. What’s more, you seem to be deliberately ignoring the point that I was trying to make. That being that our retail stores are deliberately removing anything Christian for fear of offending some people, while at the same time going out of their way (additional advertising, sales, extended store hours) in order to profit from our Christian tradition. If someone wants to profit from my religion, or my tradition, or my culture, or my heritage, than that someone should respect these things. Official store policies that prohibit their employees from saying “Merry Christmas” shows a severe lack of respect for these things.
And if I were to wish someone a Merry Christmas and they were to reply “no, you wish me a Happy hanukkah”, I would.
I only know what you told us, and from what you told us, I think you did wrong. I get your point, and I think you are getting upset about something that isn’t worth getting upset about.