{"id":6344,"date":"2005-12-15T14:21:59","date_gmt":"2005-12-15T14:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html"},"modified":"2005-12-15T14:21:59","modified_gmt":"2005-12-15T14:21:59","slug":"christmas-commemorations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Commemorations"},"content":{"rendered":"

In DC: Senator Santorum will use the season to bring attention to global persecuation of Christians.<\/a> Senator Kennedy will use it to argue for raising the minimum wage:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

At a press conference this morning in front of the Capitol Christmas tree, Mr. Kennedy, joined by Democratic members of Congress, will kick off a campaign to frame Republican budget cuts as antithetical to the spirit of Christmas that will continue through the rest of the congressional session, a spokeswoman for the senator, Laura Capps, said.<\/p>\n

In response to a request for further comment on Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, Ms. Capps directed the Sun to statements made by Mr. Kennedy on the floor of the Senate Monday.<\/p>\n

After criticizing proposed reductions in a variety of welfare programs including Medicaid, food stamps, and Head Start, Mr. Kennedy denounced Republicans by saying: "Are these actions consistent with the spirit of this holiday season?"<\/p>\n

"Rather than debate whether the word ‘Christmas’ should appear in our stores and on our greeting cards," Mr. Kennedy said, "shouldn’t we be living out the hope that came from the first Christmas and do more for our fellow citizens than greater tax breaks for the rich and greater hardship for the poor and everyone else?"<\/p>\n

According to Mr. Kennedy’s speech, the senator’s Christmas gifts to America would include redistributing banks’ profits to college students to pay for their education, providing federal assistance for home-heating costs, and raising the minimum wage<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In DC: Senator Santorum will use the season to bring attention to global persecuation of Christians. Senator Kennedy will use it to argue for raising the minimum wage: At a press conference this morning in front of the Capitol Christmas tree, Mr. Kennedy, joined by Democratic members of Congress, will kick off a campaign to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nChristmas Commemorations - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christmas Commemorations - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In DC: Senator Santorum will use the season to bring attention to global persecuation of Christians. Senator Kennedy will use it to argue for raising the minimum wage: At a press conference this morning in front of the Capitol Christmas tree, Mr. Kennedy, joined by Democratic members of Congress, will kick off a campaign to…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-12-15T14:21:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Christmas Commemorations - Via Media","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\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Christmas Commemorations - Via Media","og_description":"In DC: Senator Santorum will use the season to bring attention to global persecuation of Christians. Senator Kennedy will use it to argue for raising the minimum wage: At a press conference this morning in front of the Capitol Christmas tree, Mr. Kennedy, joined by Democratic members of Congress, will kick off a campaign to…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-12-15T14:21:59+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html","name":"Christmas Commemorations - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-12-15T14:21:59+00:00","dateModified":"2005-12-15T14:21:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/christmas-commemorations.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Christmas Commemorations"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?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\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}