CHICAGO (AP) - A public Christmas festival is no place for the Christmas story, the city says. Officials have asked organizers of a downtown Christmas festival, the German Christkindlmarket, to reconsider using a movie studio as a sponsor because it is worried ads for its film "The Nativity Story" might offend non-Christians.These kinds of stories have a way of backfiring. By cancelling the sponsorship, they will give more publicity to the movie than it would have received as an event sponsor.
New Line Cinema, which said it was dropped, had planned to play a loop of the new film on televisions at the event. The decision had both the studio and a prominent Christian group shaking their heads.
"The last time I checked, the first six letters of Christmas still spell out Christ," said Paul Braoudakis, spokesman for the Barrington, Ill.-based Willow Creek Association, a group of more than 11,000 churches of various denominations. "It's tantamount to celebrating Lincoln's birthday without talking about Abraham Lincoln."
He also said that there is a nativity scene in Daley Plaza - and that some vendors at the festival sell items related to the nativity.
The city does not want to appear to endorse one religion over another, said Cindy Gatziolis, a spokeswoman for the Mayor's Office of Special Events. She acknowledged there is a nativity scene, but also said there will be representations of other faiths, including a Jewish menorah, all put up by private groups. She stressed that the city did not order organizers to drop the studio as a sponsor.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Chicago Tries to Ignore the Nativity in its Midst
Chicago has a large nativity scene in the middle of their annual German Christkindlmarket festival, but they vetoed any sponsorship from the movie company that just made the excellent film, The Nativity Story:
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