Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on January 9, 2008

Click here to view bill details.

It is too bad that we need a law to allow the people of this State to have these celebrations in schools, City Halls, etc. The First ammendment should be required reading and memorization for all. Particularly "fraidy cat" school boards, and teachers. I would include our illustrious legislators except they are way too busy trying to find other ways to tax us and take away more of our rights

get rid of public schools we won't have this problem. All education should be private.

Bad bill.

we mandate kwanza.

... that it is considered ok to celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanza and Ramadan but Christmas is taboo? It's not just the schools, it's pervasive across society. Look at what the television stations did in their holiday commercials. They wished viewers happy Hanukkah, Kwanza and Ramadan but never mentioned Christmas by name, opting instead to say Happy Holidays. Employees at Meijer aren't even allowed to say Merry Christmas unless a customer says it to them first. Why is it ok to discriminate against Christians?

It is a crying shame that someone has to even entertain a bill like this. This Country, because of "political correctness", is slowly disappearing to the point that it would not be recognizable to any of our founding fathers. It Pi$$es me off that everyone is so scared of "political correctness" that a Christian person cannot proudly celebrate their beliefs without some jack$ZZ, who is allowed and encouraged to celebrate his/her beliefs, crying foul. I believe in God and I believe that Christ died for my sins and I believe that I am ENTITLED to celebrate not only his birth, but also his resurrection. I encourage those of different faiths to worship as they see fit and will gladly wish them a happy Hanukah or Kwanza because that is not only the spirit of this Country and what we are supposed to be, but it's also the law. All I ask is that I be allowed to do the same.

This bill is a prime example of political posturing -- introducing legislation that addresses a non-problem in an effort to create an issue that really isn't there. But it sure will stir up the masses, and keep them distracted from attending to matters of substance.

Interesting. We have Muslim footbaths erected on UofM's campus but we can't have Silent Night sung in a public school concert. Hmmm. When our founding fathers talked about "separation of church and state" they meant that the state wouldn't interfere with the rights of individuals in practicing their religion. In fact the notion of separation came from a letter written by Jefferson to a Danbury Baptist minister (if memory serves me correctly) and Jefferson went through several drafts before finally sending his letter -- he wanted his wording to be right! The idea was this: the state wouldn't interfere with a group's right to practice it's faith. It really didn't say that religion would stay out of the state, but rather that the state would stay out of religion. Nowadays we tick off 90% of the people because of what 10% of the people want, except in the case of Muslims who we seem to always try to appease --hence the footbaths which are a violation of our state constitution -- because UofM is a public school, not a private one and you can't use tax dollars so I've heard for erecting religious things on school property. And of course there is the Muslim charter School in Minnesota being investigated....hmm give me some public tax dollars and let me start a Catholic charter school here and see how far I get. But I digresss. We've screwed up. Most people are Christians and folks many of the founding fathers whether they were Christian or not, believers or not, recognized the importance of prayer and God -- even my favorite study -- Benny Franklin!!! He opened congressional sessions with Prayer. But see, people don't read, and they don't understand our history. They'd rather get spin from TV or trust their liberal biased university profs and teachers at school. Too busy on YouTube. Nobody gets taught the whole story, let alone any of the story. Nobody seems to care about the Federalist Papers or the anti-Federalist ones either. As a result we watch nativity stories disappear from schools, the ten commandments get removed from public places, and hear about lots of other events, despite the fact that we are a primarily Christian nation, founded on Christian beliefs -- whether people want to believe that or not. Bring values back into schools. Prayer is important.

From a noted conservative: "Public religiosity is bad enough. Public religiosity in pursuit of political power is even worse." Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnist, 1999 Krauthammer nailed it right there.

Geez!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!