{"id":1887,"date":"2012-12-21T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/holiday-tree-dispute-wins-governor-annual-scrooge-award\/"},"modified":"2012-12-21T07:05:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T07:05:00","slug":"holiday-tree-dispute-wins-governor-annual-scrooge-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2012\/12\/holiday-tree-dispute-wins-governor-annual-scrooge-award\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Holiday tree’ dispute wins governor annual Scrooge award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Washington D.C., Dec 21, 2012 \/ 12:05 am (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- A law firm has given Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee its 2012 \u201cEbenezer Award\u201d for his insistence that the 17.5-foot fir tree in the local state house rotunda is a \u201choliday tree,\u201d not a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

\tThe Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-partisan, interfaith group of attorneys, said the award is given to \u201cthe public figure responsible for the most ridiculous affront to Christmas and Hanukkah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tIt takes its name from Ebenezer Scrooge, the churlish character from Charles Dickens' famous 19th\u00a0 work \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe dubious honor continues a controversy over a year old.<\/p>\n

\tLast year protesters showed up at the governor's tree lighting ceremony in Providence to sing \u201cO Christmas Tree\u201d to show their objections to the tree's generic name.<\/p>\n

\tThe law firm said that this year Chafee announced the lighting ceremony only 30 minutes ahead of time so that no protest could happen.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHeaven forbid the joyful singing of\u00a0 'O Christmas Tree' would happen again by the tree\u2026at Christmas time,\u201d the Becket Fund said Dec. 19.<\/p>\n

\tIn various interviews, Chafee has said his office calls the tree a holiday tree because that is what his predecessor did. He said the name of the tree is also inclusive.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThere are many religions in Rhode Island. And everybody pays for the State House,\u201d he told CNSNews.com Dec. 5.<\/p>\n

\tHe additionally told the Providence Journal he didn\u2019t want the ceremony to be turned into a controversial event.<\/p>\n

\tLast year, the governor\u2019s office received 3,500 calls of protest, though only 700 came from in state.<\/p>\n

\tThe Catholic Diocese of Providence had also held a Christmas tree lighting at St. Patrick\u2019s Church one block from the Statehouse to provide an alternative to the governor\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\tThe diocese\u2019s chancellor Fr. Timothy Reilly in December 2011 told the New York Daily News that the governor\u2019s effort to be inclusive was laudable but he chose the wrong way to do it. Fr. Reilly said he hoped reflection on Christmas would outweigh the dispute over the tree\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHe probably had the best of intentions but somewhere, somehow we lost hold of the true meaning of the season,\u201d Fr. Reilly said of the governor. \u201cIt's all about the baby Jesus. We tend to almost forget this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe Becket Fund didn\u2019t criticize only Gov. Chafee in its 2012 announcement. It also singled out the U.S. Navy, which canceled a live nativity scene in Bahrain after a military atheist group complained.<\/p>\n

\tThe law firm criticized the City of Santa Monica, Calif., which ended the more than 50-year-old tradition of having a nativity scene in a city park. Some objectors to the move then staged a living nativity scene in the same park.<\/p>\n

\tIn its announcement, the Becket Fund also praised actions nationwide in support of Christmas.<\/p>\n

\tThis year the State of Pennsylvania reinstated the practice of placing a Christmas tree on the front steps of the state capitol, a tradition that had been neglected for 30 years.<\/p>\n

\tThe Becket Fund has successfully defended the place of Christmas and Hanukah in public life. It defended a Utah public school that include religious songs in holiday concerts and two New Jersey cities that faced lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union that sought to remove their holiday displays.<\/p>\n

\tThe law firm has also defended the federal government\u2019s recognition of Christmas as a federal holiday.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington D.C., Dec 21, 2012 \/ 12:05 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- A law firm has given Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee its 2012 “Ebenezer Award” for his insistence that the 17.5-foot fir tree in the local state house rotunda is a “holiday …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n'Holiday tree' dispute wins governor annual Scrooge award<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Washington D.C., Dec 21, 2012 \/ 12:05 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- A law firm has given Rhode Island Gov. 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