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FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Date & Time: December 07,
2007 AT:2:00pm
Breezeway at City Hall
202 C St, San Diego, CA 92101
Contact: Anthony Porrello
858-554-0965
e-mail:
anthony@porrello.com
http://restorechristmas.org/
PRESS CONFERENCE
Bring Back Christmas on the
Prado
The goal of RestoreChristmas.org is to
restore "Christmas on the Prado", to the original name, the original
Balboa Park event. There is no compromise.
Based on quasi-Constitutional arguments,
certain San Diego legislators want us to believe this it is legally
necessary and even decorous to eliminate any reference to
'Christmas" from our city and vocabulary. However, the use of
"Christmas" is not only religious; it also reflects our American
tradition.
There are some people who want to remove all references of religion
from the public square.
They despise us for having any
references to our religious beliefs. We have the right to religious
freedom. They have misunderstood the meaning of: “Separation of
Church and State. This phrase is NOT in the Constitution.
On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote
the infamous Danbury letter to the Danbury Baptist Association to
quell the fears of the Danbury congregation who were concerned that
a national denomination would be established.(See entire letter
below) Here is the text in question:
“I contemplate with solemn
reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that
their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a
wall of separation between church and state.”
The First Amendment is startling in
its clarity, offering no limit to the impact of religious and moral
conviction of individual citizens on public policy.
“Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The Constitution is not a limit on
our freedom, it is a limit on the governments freedom. The
Constitution is not a set of restrictions on the people, it is
specifically to put restrictions on the Government. The Constitution
was not written to provide you with boundaries, it was set up to
outline the boundaries of our government. And the government is
crossing it's boundaries by removing the name Christmas on the
Prado.
Jefferson’s wall is a one-way wall.
Any religious person, any religious organization, any religious
conviction has its place in the public debate. It’s called
pluralism, in the classic sense of the word.
Non-establishment has no purpose by
itself. Freedom of religion is the goal, and non-establishment is
the means. The only way to have true freedom of religion is to keep
government out of religion’s affairs.
Engraved on the walls of the
Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. are the words of our third
President: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties
of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these
liberties are the gift of God?"
Thomas Jefferson wrote the first
draft of the Declaration of Independence -- and, of course, it
speaks of God repeatedly. It speaks of unalienable rights
which are endowed by our Creator. Now, the Declaration of
Independence is our founding document. So if Thomas Jefferson
was hostile to religion, the basis of which is God, it's hard to
explain his writings in such an important document.
Many
consider Porrello a Constitutionalist. He was
inspired to create RestoreChristmas.org by the First Amendment of
the Constitution, which states, "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof...." With full respect for the Establishment
Clause, Porrello point out that the Free Exercise clause has been
sorely neglected in recent years as, regarding this issue, our city
legislators have been wallowing in a morass of pseudo-political
correctness. According to Porrello, true political correctness lay
in respecting the Constitution in its entirety.
RestoreChristmas.org recommends that the City of San Diego
can create an additional event called "August Nights" when the days
are long and people will not freeze on the ferris wheel.
The former City Council took
"Christmas on the Prado" away from us, a time is coming when a new
City Council will return the original name, to the original Balboa
Park event.
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RestoreChristmas.org
