Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Letters: "‘Happy Holidays’ is an appropriate sentiment"

My letter as submitted:

Editor:

I noted Councilman Lamerson's objection to the 'Happy Holidays' sign on City Hall in your story of Dec. 17, and I happened to take a look at it as I went about my business today. I feel compelled to offer my support for the decision-maker behind that sign and deplore the media-manufactured controversy that Mr Lamerson is abetting.

There is, of course, no 'war on Christmas.' I don't know about Mr Lamerson, but I've been seeing and hearing the 'Happy Holidays' greeting since the 1960s, and I'm sure it's older than that. What some people are worrying about now is the conscious choice to make the holiday period more inclusive, in the very spirit of community that is supposed to suffuse this part of the year. To contend against that and in effect declare Arizona's Christmas City as being exclusively for Christians is simply un-American and an affront to all of us who value religious liberty.

'Happy Holidays' is a perfectly appropriate sentiment to trumpet from the top of a public building in which decisions are made that should represent us all. A declaration of religious affiliation, however benign the intent, is clearly not. City Hall made a good decision.
And as it appears in today's online edition:

EDITOR:

I noted Councilman Jim Lamerson’s objection to the “Happy Holidays” sign on City Hall in your Dec. 17 story, and I took a look at it as I went about my business. I feel compelled to offer my support for the decision-maker behind that sign and deplore the media-manufactured controversy that Councilman Lamerson is abetting.

There is, of course, no “war on Christmas.” I don’t know about Councilman Lamerson, but I’ve been seeing and hearing the “Happy Holidays” greeting since the 1960s, and I’m sure it’s older than that.

What some people are worrying about now is the conscious choice to make the holiday period more inclusive, in the very spirit of community that is supposed to suffuse this part of the year.

To contend against that and in effect declare Arizona’s “Christmas City” as being exclusively for Christians is simply un-American and an affront to all of us who value religious liberty.

“Happy Holidays” is a perfectly appropriate sentiment to trumpet from the top of a public building in which decisions are made that should represent us all.

A declaration of religious affiliation, however benign the intent, is clearly not.

City Hall made a good decision.

Fellow editors and others who believe details are important will note the arbitrary (and wrong) changes in quotemarks and graf breaks. I see the proper use of single quotes in the headline, so I can't infer that it's just a stylebook thing. More important are the changes from "Mr" to "Councilman." The changes in the first sentence are clunky, but clearly done for space -- after the arbitrary graf breaks blew air into it. It could be worse, but I have to ask myself: what is the purpose of the extra work someone is putting into the letters? For my answer, I look at the results.

Here's what you're supposed to be doing with letters, folks: Print them as submitted to the best of your ability -- meaning that your only reason to change anything is for space. Readers don't care about your stylebook and their choices do not reflect on you editorially, so there's no point in messing with them unless you intend to control what they're saying.