It's called Christmas

City officials in Michigan change Dickens Christmas Festival to Dickens Holiday Festival
ADF attorneys send letter providing information to officials in Mount Pleasant on the constitutionality of using the word “Christmas” for its Dickens festival
Tuesday, December 04, 2007, 2:42 PM (MST) |
ADF Media Relations | 480-444-0020

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MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter Monday to city officials in Mount Pleasant explaining the constitutionality of using the word “Christmas” for its Dickens festival. City officials changed the name of its Dickens Christmas Festival to “Dickens Holiday Festival” in its advertising materials to be sent to a local school district after the school district enacted a policy banning the word “Christmas.”

“It’s ridiculous that a city thinks its festival named after Charles Dickens’ classic book, A Christmas Carol, has to be renamed a ‘holiday’ festival in order to appease the agents of political correctness at a local school district,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman.

The Mount Pleasant School District enacted a policy that purportedly bans the use of the words “Christmas,” “Santa,” and “nativity.” ADF attorneys explained in the letter that such a policy is unconstitutional as applied to the private speech of students, teachers, and members of the community.

“The First Amendment of the Constitution restricts the government from infringing upon the religious liberty and religious speech of citizens, and the Constitution does not require the censorship of the word ‘Christmas,’” said ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “What’s next? A reading at the public library of ’Twas the Night Before a Holiday?”

A copy of the letter ADF attorneys sent to Mount Pleasant Downtown Development Officer Michelle Sponseller can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/MountPleasantLetter.pdf.

ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

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