Saturday, December 13, 2003

Merry Christmas!

The day that Christmas carols fell foul of the PC brigade
A church has been told that it cannot publicise its Christmas services on a community notice board to avoid offending other religions.

The Church of England may be the established faith of the United Kingdom. But Buckinghamshire county council regards it as a "religious preference group" and the ban was upheld yesterday.

Officials from All Saints, High Wycombe, Bucks, hoped to promote the service of nine lessons and carols and midnight mass by displaying an A4 size poster on a board in the town's public library.

The poster contained no message or religious exhortation, simply the dates and times of the services.
A4 is Euro letter sized - more like a flyer than a poster. OK, I'll bite - what's the problem?
Peter Mussett, the council's community development librarian, said his member of staff was right not to display the poster.

"We have a multi-faith community and passions can be inflamed by religious issues," he said. "We don't want to cause offence to anyone."
Woohoo - inflamed passions! They should have advertised a whole body massage workshop.