{"id":38,"date":"2007-12-18T13:08:44","date_gmt":"2007-12-18T13:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html"},"modified":"2007-12-18T13:08:44","modified_gmt":"2007-12-18T13:08:44","slug":"festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html","title":{"rendered":"Festivus Makes it to City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a nativity scene was erected in front of City Hall.  Some members of the community felt that this was an inappropriate public display of religion, and one man felt strongly enough about it to request that a Festivus pole be erected next to the creche.  Festivus, of course, is the fictional holiday, popularized by the &#8220;Seinfeld&#8221; show, in which an unadorned aluminum pole is posted and people partake in rituals including &#8220;feats of strength&#8221; and &#8220;the airing of grievances.&#8221;<br \/>\nAccording to this <a href=\"http:\/\/hosted.ap.org\/dynamic\/stories\/W\/WI_FESTIVUS_NATIVITY_WIOL-?SITE=WIFON&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT\">Associated Press article<\/a>, resident Sean Ryan requested the Festivus display in order to &#8220;showcase how deciding what religions to include in the display can turn to the absurd.&#8221;<br \/>\nGreen Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt, however, is not amused.  The mayor says that a Wiccan pentacle display was installed at City Hall after residents requested it, proving that the city is willing to display symbols of legitimate religions.<br \/>\nThe &#8220;silly antics&#8221; of the Festivus request, Schmitt said, &#8220;is kind of making a laughing matter of something that&#8217;s rather serious.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a nativity scene was erected in front of City Hall. Some members of the community felt that this was an inappropriate public display of religion, and one man felt strongly enough about it to request that a Festivus pole be erected next to the creche. Festivus, of course, is the fictional&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-38","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>Festivus Makes it to City Hall - 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\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Festivus Makes it to City Hall - December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a nativity scene was erected in front of City Hall. Some members of the community felt that this was an inappropriate public display of religion, and one man felt strongly enough about it to request that a Festivus pole be erected next to the creche. Festivus, of course, is the fictional&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-18T13:08:44+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":"Festivus Makes it to City Hall - 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\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Festivus Makes it to City Hall - December Dilemma Watch 2007","og_description":"In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a nativity scene was erected in front of City Hall. 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Festivus, of course, is the fictional&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html","og_site_name":"December Dilemma Watch 2007","article_published_time":"2007-12-18T13:08:44+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\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html","name":"Festivus Makes it to City Hall - December Dilemma Watch 2007","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-18T13:08:44+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-18T13:08:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/festivus-makes-it-to-city-hall.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Festivus Makes it to City Hall"}]},{"@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\/38","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=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}