{"id":35,"date":"2007-12-17T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2007-12-17T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html"},"modified":"2007-12-17T10:00:26","modified_gmt":"2007-12-17T10:00:26","slug":"the-sps-speak-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html","title":{"rendered":"An &#8220;SP&#8221; Speaks Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Bill O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s Talking Points Memo declaring victory in the War on Christmas, he cited a column by the Philadelphia Daily News&#8217; Carol Towarnicky.  O&#8217;Reilly said that for her comment that &#8220;No religion should be in the public square, not even when the overwhelming majority of citizens practice it,&#8221; Towarnicky would be applauded by &#8220;Joseph Stalin, Mao, and Fidel.&#8221;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.philly.com\/dailynews\/opinion\/columnists\/20071212_Carol_Towarnicky___THE_WAR_OVER_THE_WAR_ON_CHRISTMAS.html\">Here&#8217;s Towarnicky&#8217;s full column<\/a>, with her take on O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s real victory:<br \/>\n&#8220;When underpaid and underinsured cashiers sell you stuff you can&#8217;t afford to give to people who don&#8217;t really need it, much of it made in deplorable conditions overseas, they will be sure to wish you a &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; instead of that sinister &#8220;Happy Holidays,&#8221; she writes.  Her column advocates a re-focusing onto Advent saying, &#8220;Just maybe, it would focus our attention on the churches, homes and families where the real Christmas still thrives.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Bill O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s Talking Points Memo declaring victory in the War on Christmas, he cited a column by the Philadelphia Daily News&#8217; Carol Towarnicky. O&#8217;Reilly said that for her comment that &#8220;No religion should be in the public square, not even when the overwhelming majority of citizens practice it,&#8221; Towarnicky would be applauded by &#8220;Joseph&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-winter-holidays"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An &quot;SP&quot; Speaks Out - December Dilemma Watch 2007<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An &quot;SP&quot; Speaks Out - December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Bill O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s Talking Points Memo declaring victory in the War on Christmas, he cited a column by the Philadelphia Daily News&#8217; Carol Towarnicky. O&#8217;Reilly said that for her comment that &#8220;No religion should be in the public square, not even when the overwhelming majority of citizens practice it,&#8221; Towarnicky would be applauded by &#8220;Joseph&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-17T10:00:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An \"SP\" Speaks Out - December Dilemma Watch 2007","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"An \"SP\" Speaks Out - December Dilemma Watch 2007","og_description":"In Bill O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s Talking Points Memo declaring victory in the War on Christmas, he cited a column by the Philadelphia Daily News&#8217; Carol Towarnicky. O&#8217;Reilly said that for her comment that &#8220;No religion should be in the public square, not even when the overwhelming majority of citizens practice it,&#8221; Towarnicky would be applauded by &#8220;Joseph&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html","og_site_name":"December Dilemma Watch 2007","article_published_time":"2007-12-17T10:00:26+00:00","author":"hrossi","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html","name":"An \"SP\" Speaks Out - December Dilemma Watch 2007","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-17T10:00:26+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-17T10:00:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/the-sps-speak-out.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"An &#8220;SP&#8221; Speaks Out"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/","name":"December Dilemma Watch 2007","description":"Winter Holidays Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687","name":"hrossi","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","caption":"hrossi"},"description":"Holly Lebowitz Rossi is Beliefnet's Health and Relationships Editor. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}