So, the staff in our office, probably like office staff everywhere, love to decorate. They don't need much of a pretext before the place is dripping with festive cheer. Halloween and Thanksgiving were all out - the latter quite weird. I don't know, but a large cardboard turkey on all the adminstrators' doors sends some sort of message...
Of course once the turkeys went back into their boxes, out came the tree, garlands and other sparkly bits of holiday cheer. It wasn't long before one of the faculty complained. We had a long disucssion on the separation of church and state and I promised to look into the matter. Well it turns out the US Supreme Court has actually ruled on this issue, and the tree is not a religious symbol. You just have to call it a 'holiday' tree and it's all good. Personally I think that is some serious semantic slight of hand. Of course it's part of Christmas! However this does move the issue to one we can discuss as a department. When I had suggested that option to said faculty member, he asked if we were "really going to debate the Constitution". Now that it's no longer a constitutional issue, just one of personal preference, well, I guess we can have at it in a department meeting... That should be fun.
1 comment:
O M G. You don't get a break, do you? It's actually easier living in a land of fused church and state, you get a lot less bother from the religious. Go figure.
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