So Texan of him.
Well I think they should have waited until the "holiday season" to make this have more impact but Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has signed into law a bill that makes it legal to say "Merry Christmas". Or maybe they need 5 months advance notice that they're allowed to drag all the Chr---mas decorations out from storage.
AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perrysigned a bill into law Thursday that he said would allow people of all faiths to exchange holiday greetings and display religious scenes and symbols even on school property.
House Bill 308 by Bohac and Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville — dubbed the “Merry Christmas bill” by some backers — specifies that a school district may allow students and staff to offer “traditional greetings” associated with winter celebrations, specifying they include “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Hanukkah” and “happy holidays.”
And we know that this is needed because cheerleaders had been asked to separate Church and State:
Among those on hand for the ceremony were cheerleaders from Kountze High School, who wore T-shirts saying, “I cheer for Christ.” They won a court battle allowing them to display football-game banners sporting Bible verses. Perry said their case is “an example of the pressure on our public schools in particular to push down any reflections of religious thought or words.”
(Don't you know the Baby Jesus must be so happy someone is cheering and making human pyramids for him).
Right - because trying to adhere to the Constitution, and not having someone else's religion pushed down your throat, is "pushing down reflections of religious thought".
Thankfully the ACLU weighed in with some common sense and has promised to keep tabs on this:
“We will be monitoring this very closely,” Tom Hargins, director of communications for the ACLU of Texas, told the Daily News. “We hope that school administrators will remain mindful that it is up to parents to introduce and teach their kids about religion, not the public schools.”
Said the Governor upon signing the bill:
“It's a shame that a bill like this one I'm signing today is even required, but I'm proud that we're standing up for religious freedom in this state,” Perry said. “Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion.”
Yes it's a shame, but not for the reasons Perry thinks. It's a shame that your state is signing bills subverting the Constitution which does, indeed, give us freedom from religion, yours or anyone else's.
Rabbi Zev Johnson may have had the best comment of the day though:
Rabbi Zev Johnson of the Chabad Student Center at UT said when asked if he was concerned that a measure nicknamed the “Merry Christmas bill” would favor Christianity in schools, “I understood it was the Happy Hanukkah bill.”