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July 14, 2006 by
Jordan Graham
Today is a good day
to act -- to pick up the phone or send a fax or
email -- to tell Fort Collins' city council how
you feel about them removing the Menorah from the
official city holiday display, which features
Christmas trees and wreaths.
Here's what has happened
On Tuesday, July 11th, the Fort Collins City
Council met to study whether they should remove
the Menorah from the city's holiday display, which
features a Christmas tree and wreaths.
This in Fort Collins, home to the hate flyers that
were distributed in parking lots on CSU's campus.
One of the city council members, in picking and
choosing to include a Christmas tree and exclude a
Menorah, was quoted (incredibly) as saying "If we
don't include all symbols, we can't just pick and
choose what we think belongs there."
Here's another head-scratcher -- council member
Ben Manvel said "We just didn't want to get into
the picking and choosing business."
Here's what's happened
My take on excluding the Menorah
I see this as a tragic step away from Colorado
being a place of awareness and growth, and giving
support to the kind of people who distributed hate
fliers at CSU this year.
The Menorah symbolizes religious freedom and
acceptance of diversity. The Supreme Court, acting
in that spirit, has ruled that the Menorah is a
secular symbol.
Fort Collins is choosing to repress any discomfort
around diversity issues, rather than support
healthy discussion and growth on diversity.
The part that I find difficult to deal with is
that they don't see that including the Christmas
tree and excluding the Menorah is making any kind
of a choice around inclusion and exclusion. They
honestly believe that the Christmas tree is
neutral, whereas the Menorah is Jewish. It's as
though they live on a different planet from me.
Here's what you can do
Call, fax or email the Mayor and the city council
members -- there are only six of them -- and tell
them how you feel about their removal of the
Menorah:
Contact info: City Hall West
300 LaPorte Avenue
P. O. Box 580
Fort Collins, CO 80521
Ph: (970) 221-6878
FAX: (970) 224-6107
Council Members
* Doug Hutchinson, Mayor
* Ben Manvel, Dist. 1
* Karen Weitkunat, Dist. 2
* Diggs Brown, Dist. 3
* Kurt Kastein, Dist. 4
* Kelly Ohlson, Dist. 5
* David Roy, Dist. 6 |
