This sounds like something you’d see in America. I thought Switzerland was cooler than us.

Switzerland is cooler in some ways, but has its own special problems in others. The one thing to remember is not to try to imagine that there’s some sort of linear ordering of national coolness.

Valdyr, yes, I’m completely serious. How would YOU feel if you couldn’t even mention your grandmother’s nationality without somebody immediately talking about her as a nazi?

The fact that people immediately start talking about nazis when anyone mentions Germany is racism, pure and simple, and I’ve had it with that behavior and am no longer willing to quietly tolerate it. The war ended 64 years ago. Most of the people involved are dead. Contemporary Germans are not only not militant, but actually were recently found to have the biggest sense of humor in the world. Get over it, you bigot.

What the fuck are you talking about? Not only did I not mention Nazis–actually, no one has except you–I didn’t even mention Germans at all, except to say that they’re one of the three predominant ethnic groups of Switzerland. I wouldn’t have expected stating that to be any more offensive than saying the Earth’s atmosphere is comprised mainly of nitrogen and oxygen.

Furthermore, I’m not a bigot against any group, least of all Germans–I’m taking German language classes right now, as it happens. If anyone has cause to be offended, it’s me for being slapped with the label of racist, completely out of nowhere.

And what’s this about your grandmother? When did I say anything about anyone’s grandmother?

I keep re-reading my post and I can’t find anything that could be remotely construed as offensive. Seriously, could you BE any crazier right now?

As for Lucerne, like much of central Switzerland, it is very strongly catholic (guess where many Swiss guards in the Vatican come from… ) so this decision may not be very surprising, but please also read the following excerpt (my own translation, since Google’s is pretty pathetic):

For city council member David Roth (SP) De Bona’s decision is unacceptable: “You can see religious ads in this city – there is an urgent need for equality.” If necessary he will file an appropriate motion.

And finally, The other Tom, where did Valdyr mention nazis? His reference to Poland was about it being an ultra-catholic country , not about the start of WWII… so much for having “the biggest sense of humour in the world”…

The fact that people immediately start talking about nazis when anyone mentions Germany is racism, pure and simple, and I’ve had it with that behavior and am no longer willing to quietly tolerate it. The war ended 64 years ago. Most of the people involved are dead. Contemporary Germans are not only not militant, but actually were recently found to have the biggest sense of humor in the world. Get over it, you bigot.

The swiss (all 3 types (swiss-german, swiss-italians, and french-swiss) are pretty afraid of people who are not like them. Atheists included. They are xenophobic and are constantly voting on immigration issues to protect themselves. I am sure this extends and applies to religion or lack thereof.

Jeff: You can opt out of the religious tax if you say you don’t belong to a church!

They don’t tolerate mosque minarets either!

Valdyr: First of all, I’m highly offended by your racist remark and as a German American I demand an apology. You want to see German belligerence? Fine, here it is. Your remark was pure bigotry, apologize at once.

Uh… I honestly can’t tell if you’re kidding or not. Either way, my provisional reply is contained in this image.

Secondly, I’ve been to Luzern, with Germans, and trust me, the Germans don’t think the Swiss “Germans” are German. The Swiss “German” language is even unintelligible to Germans and normal German speakers. (By contrast, after a few years of high school German I could understand Dutch just fine if they spoke slowly.)

I found the people of Luzern to be somewhat insular, unlike anywhere I visited in, say, Germany or Austria. The young people I met refused to speak German with me – I know for a fact that they’d had to pass courses on it and could speak perfect high German with me if they wanted to, but if I spoke it to them they’d cheerfully pretend they couldn’t understand me (funny, all the Germans thought I was a native speaker) so I had to resort to English, which they all also spoke and were somehow willing to deal with. A little. (They’d understand me, but pretend not to be able to reply in English.) All of the elderly people I met (shopkeepers, etc) I couldn’t communicate with at all, because I couldn’t speak their language, they wouldn’t speak German with me or acknowledge that they could understand me, and they were old enough to have not been schooled after the requirement to learn English was put in place.

It’s Switzerland, so I expect the courts will make the local government behave. However, I’m not surprised that if this was going to happen, it happened in Luzern.