Foist Upon Their Own Petard

...or canard if you will.

Daly Plaza in Chicago has an annual Christmas Festival that has focused the conflict between the word 'Christmas' and descriptive 'holiday' titles for the very event that was the entire inspiration for this particular holiday.

It seems that 'New Line Cinema', a production company responsible for the new film to be released "The Nativity" has sponsored the Chicago event, intending to show a trailer for their film to event-goers. The Chicago city fathers have encouraged the event organizers to exclude the showing of the trailer during the Christmas Festival in order to not offend any non-Christians.

This is all quite absurd, of course. What amuses me is the legal ramifications involved. The Lynch Test Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 is used to determine if a public event constitutes prosyletization or could instead be allowed on the basis of market forces such as advertising a product, like this movie. The upshot of this is that someones' (New Line Cinema) civil rights are being abused by the city of Chicago, although officially the city has stated that the decision is that of the event organizers, despite any pressure that has been brought to bear in order to coerce compliance with their wishes regarding the movie trailer.

Wouldn't the ACLU, oft maligned and despised in this venue, be obligated to take up the banner on the basis of the 'Establishment Clause' and protest on behalf of New Line Cinema?

The final Christmas gift for New Line Cinema is the boost that all this ado will provide to the box office success of the movie.

Ho-Ho-Ho Establishment Claus!

Swampy