Marquette Won’t Call a Christmas Tree a “Christmas Tree”

We blundered onto this announcement on the Marquette website:

Residence Hall Association to hold annual tree lighting ceremony

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The Residence Hall Association will hold its annual tree lighting ceremony, “Igniting Hope,” on Monday, Nov. 28, at 5 p.m. in Westowne Square. The ceremony will include speakers, performances and the tree lighting. A reception, including musical performances, crafts and snacks, will follow from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the AMU Monaghan Ballrooms.

Let’s see: a tree with lights, being lighted in late November. What is it? Obviously a Christmas tree.

And what is missing from the above news blurb? The word “Christmas.”

Maybe somewhere else is an announcement calling this a “Christmas tree,” but the only other one we could find for this event omits “Christmas” also.

What about previous years? It seems the similar event for 2015 also omits “Christmas.” Sorry we missed blogging about that.

But every year before that seems to happily include the word “Christmas.” For example, the same event for 2014 uses “Christmas tree” and “Christmas season.” Here is another announcement for the 2014 event.

And the same event announcement for 2013 uses “Christmas tree.” This goes way back. We quickly found announcements for a “tree lighting ceremony” that was “in celebration of Christmas” for 2007, and a “Christmas tree lighting ceremony” for 2009.

So apparently, in 2015, Marquette decided that a Christmas tree was politically incorrect.

Mary Janz, Executive Director of Housing and Residence Life, did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation of this change of policy, who made it, and how it was made.

War on Christmas

Whether a Christmas tree can be called a “Christmas tree” has been a staple of the Culture Wars over the last few decades. At the nation’s Capitol, the National Christmas Tree somehow got renamed the the “Holiday Tree” in the 1990s, but when Republican Dennis Hastert was elected Speaker of the House, he got the tree returned to its original name. Fox News noted:

Calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree has become a politically charged prospect in jurisdictions across the country, from Boston to Sacramento and in dozens of communities in between. The city of Boston changed the name of its Holiday Tree back to Christmas Tree after being threatened with several lawsuits.

While the political correctness has trapped some communities into taking the Christianity out of Christmas in order to accommodate the minority of Americans who don’t celebrate the holiday, the White House continues to call its tree a Christmas Tree.

That “diversity” and “inclusion” require censoring and silencing all things Christian is a typical attitude of the politically correct. Of course, this is not “inclusive,” but rather exclusionary.

Genuine inclusion would mean recognizing the diversity of religious beliefs and traditions. The National Menorah, on public property just south of the White House, is an example. If Muslim students at Marquette wanted to stage events to celebrate Ramadan they would certainly be allowed to by Marquette (although Ramadan is usually in the summer with few students around).

But Christianity is different. Secular leftists don’t much like Christianity.