Congressmen can’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ in mail

Congressmen can’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ in mail… if they want the mailing paid for with tax dollars. The congressional franking commission (not Barney, the bureaucrats who decide if mail can be paid for with tax dollars) has told members no holiday greetings, including “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year” are permitted. They can say “have a happy new year”, referencing the time period of a new year, but not the holiday. Senate franking regulations do allow Merry Christmas! We haven’t checked it out, but we imagine all of them can say BOHICA.

This post was last modified on January 26, 2021

Bonfire of the Absurdities: After 35 year career writing software for IBM mainframes, am now self-employed contractor thinking of joining a union and striking for higher wages. Cured morbid fear of heights when I learned to look at them as lengths standing on end. Uncompromising in refusal to accept browser cookies. Amateur investor who has accumulated a small fortune in the market after starting out years ago with a large one. For recreation, I run, hike, kayak and play tennis but will not consider synchronized swimming under any circumstances.

View Comments (35)

  • The 1st Amendment explains the individual right to produce pornography and spread it around the world. I guess anyway, cuz since the 60s, America has taken that industry to new heights, like a rocket since the VCR and now with the internet it has grown at an ever-increasing pace since the UseNETs first went to 14.4 baud modem connections. One of the biggest industries in the WORLD! Of course, though our general media feeds today are tame by many free world standards, we strive to debase ourselves with our freedom to do so.

    Where it is never succinctly stated that 'there shall always be maintained a complete separation of anything having to do with God/Church/Temple and State', we can infer things, extrapolate that the government won't submit to any church and that nobody else has to either.

    In the simply wild ass mix of things, they have determined that penumbra are capable of completely hiding some of the most incredibly monumental in size things! Take the right to privacy mentioned in one of those OTHER pesky rights thingies and look real hard at it. When you spot the penumbra, quickly look behind it! You'll find dozens of MILLIONS of voluntarily aborted fetuses.

    When they want to seriously tackle some of the under-lying corruption that has such a stranglehold on the freedoms we've known and are watching erode before our eyes, maybe they'll offer to reconsider allowing the killing of unborn children, or reconsider what the relationship between diminished morality, increasing widespread depravity all being protected by rights set about to protect an individual citizen to conduct in expression against the government.

    But it serves their purposes better to bitch about Merry Christmas in congress. You must never, never EVER look behind the curtain. Don't want to get an eye poked out!

  • Part of the 1st amendment:

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ..."

    To me 1st amendment makes sure that there should be no religion in preference by the government. What can't the government just say "happy holidays"? Not everyone in the US are Christians. There are Jews, Muslims, Buddhist, nonbelievers, etc...

    I have nothing against Christians. I have plenty of Christians friends but in all honesty issues like these makes Christians seem stubborn

    • Sorry sheerfire, but it was meant to prevent the establishment of a state religion ala the Church of England.

    • sheerfire:"make no law respecting an establishment of religion"

      How is having "Merry Christmas" on a card a law establishing a religion?
      How tiresome is the deliberate distortion of the First Amendment by people who want to purge religion and faith from the public square. All the section you cited means is that the federal government shall not establish an official state religion. What does that have to do with a prayer before a football game, at an invocation, or Santa visiting a school? Some of the early states had official state churches. I don't support this, but it showed that the only thing they recognized the First Amendment as doing was preventing the federal government from promulgating a law establishing an official national religion.

      • MDLION:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Education_of_Kiryas_Joel_Village_School_District_v._Grumet

        Souter concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion." "There is more than a fine line between the voluntary association that leads to a political community comprising people who share a common religious faith, and the forced separation that occurs when the government draws explicit political boundaries on the basis of peoples' faith. In creating the district in question, New York crossed that line."

        sa_rose: this issue here is that the holiday cards are supported by tax dollars.

        • "Government should not prefer..." You know why Souter chose those words? Because he had no constitutional basis for his opinion. The First Amendment only states that Congress shall establish no religion or prevent the free exercise thereof. Now, if you can point to the clause where more is written in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights about separation, I'd like to see it. Case law is how we got here. That brings up a whole other set of issues like where in Article III does it say that the court is authorized to interpret the Constitution? Or put another way, override its own limitations. Article II says Congress shall make ALL laws, so when the court legislates from the bench, it is in violation of the Constitution. Of course, people just say that is just how it is. Maybe. But it was not the Founders' intent, IMO.

          • I applaud you on that one. Even though James Madison and Thomas Jefferson seemed very cautious about religion it seems that congressmen have every right to express their religious beliefs. Not that I necessarily agree with their desire to say Merry Christmas in the mail but I can't argue with the first amendment.

      • As had been done in Europe and Great Britain as well as many other countries. America was to be different. I would not have a problem with Happy Holidays, though if the Congressperson is Christian, they are prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”

        of THEIR religion. Just saying.

  • Well we all kind of ruined christmas anyways, and turned it into simply gifts etc.,

    We are terribly jaded about it now sadly, especially after we realized it's true start (paganism), and that in fact...the bible instructs no one to celebrate jesus's birth OR death.

    Sorry, just rather morose(sp) over the whole season...getting too old I think! :)

    • Since Jesus was the "Light of the World" placing the celebration of his birth near the winter solstice-the earth's longest night, made perfect theological sense. Where in the Bible are we told not to celebrate his birth or death?

  • What's next, Happy Birthday?
    Maybe their problem is with Happy and Merry, after all, they do seem to be rather grumpy to me.

  • Maybe they're taking a tip from the towelhead a few threads down, who says saying "Merry Christmas" is worse than rape, murder, drunkeness, or rape.* Do these rules also prohibit the wishing of "Happy Hannukah!"? Or "Joyous Eid al-Fitr!" ? I would expand my selection my suggestion below, and let's collect as many Mohammedan front group/embassies' emails, then the email for the franking commission, then as many congresssmen as we can find, and wish them all a delightful "Happy Hannukah! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!" Maybe even every day throughout this delightful Solsticial Season of the Diversity Celebration!

    Oh, and Livvy:

    NI! NI! NI!

    *"You said 'rape' twice."
    "I like rape!"

  • Nope. I'm going to sue them over this whole "Happy New Year" business. Not only do some cultures celebrate New Years at a different time, but it's insensitive to people with depression.

  • I wonder what the term 'franking' means as applied to Barney Frank? Well, perhaps I don't want to know.

  • It's just heartbreaking. It is just a small minority of people who are not Christian in the U.S. and we are to be dictated to by them. Instructed to throw by the road the very essence of our country's roots. We are a Christian nation with a constitution and laws based in Christianity. How are these people being allowed to prevail. Shouldn't the atheists, muslims be afraid of us, not us of them. Kill the lawyers.

      • They are predomionately based in Judeo Christian concepts of law. Read your history. Since, for instance, the 10 commandments sort of codify civilized society (if you leave out the couple about GOD) then it is not surprising that some of the same traditional taboos appear in other cultures as well.

      • Try reading the preamble to the Constitution. If you require any further evidence you're Oblivia.

        When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

        We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

        http://www.wfu.edu/~zulick/340/Declaration.html

        • I know you know and your link proves it but your quote is from the Declaration of Independence. The US Constitution does not actually reference God but the spirituality of the Founders is well known and there was was much written and discussed by the Founders about Natural Law as being the basis for it.

        • I gotta wonder, CO2. Why didn't they just come out and say God? Were they actually leaving it open so all people could feel included in the Constitution? I mean, I have no belief in God, but I do believe there was a Creator of some sort. I just don't claim to know who or what it was.

          • The were mostly all believers in GOD, but not the same relationship. Jefferson was a deist, did not believe in a personal GOD. Masonic tradition played into some of this as well. Masons require a belief in GOD, but no particular religion. Remember the Founding Fathers were leaving a Europe and ENgland torn by religious strife, even between Christian denominations. And the common citizen usually paid the price. I believe they were trying to prevent that in the new country they were creating.

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