Saving Christmas from Censorship in Cities, Parks, Housing, Schools and Businesses

Orlando, FL - Liberty Counsel, a nationwide public interest civil liberties law firm, is launching its sixth annual "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," pledging to be a “Friend” to those entities that recognize Christmas and a "Foe" to the Christmas censors.

Liberty Counsel has handled numerous situations involving Christmas, including successfully defending the City of Green Bay, Wisconsin, from a frivolous lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which wanted the City to remove a nativity scene from its holiday display. Other situations addressed by Liberty Counsel last year included senior living facilities that tried to ban elderly residents from displaying religious Christmas items, a teacher who insisted that students rename Christmas as "the Winter Festival," a city considering a ban on red and green Christmas decorations, and state parks excluding religious Christmas décor.

On its website, www.LC.org, Liberty Counsel offers a Help Save Christmas™ action pack, which includes educational legal memoranda to educate government officials, teachers, parents, students, private businesses, employees and others that it is legal to celebrate Christmas. The action pack also includes an "I ♥ CHRISTmas™" button and sample ads that churches can place in local newspapers to promote Christmas and Liberty Counsel’s free assistance to those facing persecution for celebrating Christmas.

As part of the annual "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," Liberty Counsel publishes a "Naughty and Nice" list which catalogs retailers that seek to profit from Christmas shoppers but exclude their stores and advertisements from references to Christmas. The list is compiled from information gathered by individual consumers and is updated whenever new information is received.

Again this year, thousands of public school teachers and administrators who are members of Christian Educators Association International have joined the "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign."

Mathew D. Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, remarked about the "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign": "Renaming a Christmas tree to a holiday tree, stopping students from wearing red and green, and censoring religious Christmas carols are absurd, but true, examples of the war against Christmas. Over the past few years the 'Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign' has successfully put the 'grinches' on the run. This year millions of Americans will join us to help save Christmas. If a government entity censors Christmas in violation of the Constitution, then we will first seek to educate but, if necessary, we will litigate. If retailers choose to profit from Christmas while pretending it does not exist, then we will patronize their competitors."