Bah Humbug! to Richard Daley, Mayor of Chicago, 2006 Ebenezer Award "Winner"Dec 20, 2006 Today, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is the recipient of the “Ebenezer Award” for 2006. The award (called the”ebby” for short) goes to Mayor Daley for the astonishing removal of the film Nativity Story from the list of sponsors at the Christkindlmarket, because of fears that ads for the film might offend non-Christians. The Christkindlmarket is a Christmas festival located in Daley Plaza, where there is a nativity scene, a menorah, and other religious symbols. Some vendors sell items related to the Nativity. “Christkindl” translates to “Christ-child.” Apparently this was lost on the mayor and his staff. “This is the epitome of the stupidity governments exhibit when it comes to the Christmas and Hanukkah season,” said Kevin J. “Seamus” Hasson, Founder and President of the Becket Fund. “Banning Christ from a Christmas Festival is like banning the Irish from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade; it doesn’t make sense.” The Ebenezer Award is a specially designed Christmas stocking filled with lumps of coal, and is given each year to the individual responsible for the silliest affront to the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays. The stocking will be mailed to Mayor Daley at City Hall in Chicago. While it isn’t known is Mayor Daley was directly responsible for the removal, the decision came from the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, so the buck clearly stops with him. “It was a close contest this year but what won us over was the sheer obtuseness of banning a commercial message about the birth of Christ from a market selling things about the birth of Christ.” Other nominees included:
Bernadette Floyd, Principal of Windmill Point Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, FL, for cancelling her school’s production of “A Penguin Christmas” for being too religious, despite the fact that the play contains no religious characters, only Santa, Rudolph, Elves, and some penguins.
The Airport Authority at Sea-Tac Airport, for removing their holiday trees after a rabbi asked them to put up a Menorah, and for not just putting up the gosh darn menorah (it’s still not up, they’ve put together a fact finding team to see if they can put it up next year. Hooray for Bureaucracy!)
Best Buy Stores, for banning the word “Christmas” from their advertisements and employees out of fear of insulting someone, despite the growing trend to reinsert the word into commercial greetings (see: Walmart, Kohl’s, Walgreen’s)
The Anonymous Grinch of Chappaqua, for complaining after a local shop owner bought Holiday flags to be displayed around town. The grinches complained that the flags looked too Jewish, despite the fact that they have no Jewish imagery on them at all. Previous Ebenezer Award "winners" — Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
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