The Secularists Are Running The Asylum: Part II - Assault On The Easter Bunny

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a fun movie, a blend of "toons" and people. Bugs Bunny Cartoons were even funnier, hapless Elmer Fudd trying to do Bugs in, never succeeding, never even coming close. Roger came out on top. So always did Bugs. Alas my children, the Easter Bunny did not! The Easter Bunny was murdered by P.C. Secularism - politically correct secularism.

E. Bunny Born A.D.200 (approx)- Died A.D.2005, R.I.P.

Rabbi Marc Gellman writing in Newsweek notes that:

"Palm Beach has become the Wittenberg of America. Now, in its most audacious act of spiritual correctness and mythical animal abuse, the Florida town is nailing the Easter Bunny to the doors of The Gardens mall."

Oh the horror, that poor bunny. Rabbi Gellman obviously is Jewish, so why is he concerned about the Easter Bunny - an overtly Christian symbol of the rebirth of Jesus The Christ? Simple, as I have said before, this is an attack on faith and the good Rabbi is not about to make the mistake of Martin Niemöller - he is speaking out now.

Gellman goes on:

"The minority attack on the most benign religious symbols in our culture recently crested in the Ten Commandments case now before the Supreme Court, a display which is supported by almost 80 percent of Americans surveyed, according to one poll. Apparently dissatisfied with taking a position that only 80 percent of the public detest, the enlightened owners of The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach County have apparently succeeded in finding a case which will rally 100 percent of Americans against them.

They have now hunted down and killed, like a mangy dog … the Easter bunny! This follows the bah humbug performance during Christmas time in which America’s marketing geniuses demanded that their employees say “Season's Greetings� rather than the incendiary and divisive “Merry Christmas.� Henceforth and forever more, shoppers at The Gardens mall will be greeted by the Garden Bunny and his pagan entourage who will no longer conduct Easter egg hunts in the mall, but rather spiritually generic egg hunts."

Garden Bunny, GARDEN BUNNY! Children have, for centuries, delighted in the idea that an "Easter Bunny" spends time and effort to deliver and hide Easter Eggs. Now, I know, and you know (as adults) that there is no such thing as an Easter Bunny in real life. We (again as adults) know that this is a pagan symbol of renewal and spring etc. borrowed probably from the Germans. Holiday.net has an excellent, if brief, history of the erstwhile rabbit here

: "The bunny as an Easter symbol seems to have it's origins in Germany, where it was first mentioned in German writings in the 1500s. The first edible Easter bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s. And were made of pastry and sugar

The Easter bunny was introduced to American folklore by the German settlers who arrived in the Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 1700s. The arrival of the "Oschter Haws" was considered "childhood's greatest pleasure" next to a visit from Christ-Kindel (Christ Child) on Christmas Eve. The children believed that if they were good the "Oschter Haws" would lay a nest of colored eggs."

Gormet Sluth has a delightful tidbit on the Easter Egg (was that a pun?...ed.):

"NO! Martha Stewart did NOT invent this tradition. Eggs symbolize rebirth, new life, etc. etc. Egyptians, as well as Persians used to dye eggs and give them as gifts to symbolize the renewal of life. (This has to be true, because I read it on the web). And then, sometime after that, Martha discovered it...."

Couple the above with this:

"The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring with an uproarious festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eastre. When the second-century Christian missionaries encountered the tribes of the north with their pagan celebrations, they attempted to convert them to Christianity. They did so, however, in a clandestine manner.

It would have been suicide for the very early Christian converts to celebrate their holy days with observances that did not coincide with celebrations that already existed. To save lives, the missionaries cleverly decided to spread their religious message slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner.

As it happened, the pagan festival of Eastre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ. It made sense, therefore, to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration as converts were slowly won over. The early name, Eastre, was eventually changed to its modern spelling, Easter."

We see a history of an innocuous symbol that delights children and if it offends adults, those adults have a lot more problems than is recognized.

However, the good folks at The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach have decided that someone entering their precious mall may be "offended" by an "EASTER" Bunny. Offended, right! For Pete's Sake, offended by a bunny. Pardon me while I have a severe attack of nausea. I'd be willing to bet dollars to day old donuts that if we took a poll of 100% of Americans we would find less than 5% would be "offended" by an Easter Bunny's presence in The Gardens Mall. The make up of that 5% would be fairly predictable also. Most of the ACLU, Athesists, Islamo-Fascists, a fairly hefty number of the radical left wing of the democratic party and those who decry Halloween as a feast of the devil when the true meaning is to "scare away" bad spirits prior to All Saint's Day the following day.

P.C. run amok. Rabbi Gellman goes on:

"So in the pursuit of that neutrality which seems to regard all religions with equal contempt, I offer up some suggestions to the mall owners of south Florida as to their next targets:

Passover matzohs blur the constitutional line separating cracker and state, and should be renamed “Getting-the-hell-out-of-Egypt flat bread.� Also public greetings of “Happy Passover� should be replaced with, “Glad you (or we) got the hell out of there.� For those who feel uncomfortable saying “hell,� please feel free to substitute “heck.�

For our Muslim brothers and sisters we have good news for you too. Ramadan, the month-long fast, will also be a forbidden word because of its religious overtones. Instead of wishing each other “Ramadan Mubarak� (Happy Ramadan), Muslims in Palm Beach County should be asked, at least while they are shopping, to wish each other “Happy no-lunch month.� After you say it a few times, the Palm Beach official in charge of language purification tells me, it has a rather nice ring to it�especially in Arabic."

If you believe, as I do, that this unremitting attack on faith is not stopped, nothing you believe will be safe. It will be ridiculed or ignored as quaint or worse as "un-American."

The Good Rabbi ends with a prescription that each of us should really take to heart:

"Look, the way we greet each other speaks the truth of our roots and our hopes and our joys. You cannot translate these religious and cultural traditions without perverting and distorting and ultimately killing them, and if some child or some adult (almost universally it is the latter) feels deeply offended and marginalized, well then they need to: first, get a life, then send money for tsunami relief, then try to end the slaughter in Darfur, then go out and buy an energy-efficient car, and then try real hard to understand that bumping into your neighbor's customs and faith ought to bring you a sense of warmth, curiosity and compassion�not fear, not revenge and not God help us, Baxter the Garden Bunny. I know this is a long fight and somewhere buried in this insanity, someone must feel that there is some worthy social, constitutional, and moral principal at issue, but I remain both flummoxed and amused at the irrational hatred of religion and religious symbols in our culture�a hatred which remains the last socially acceptable prejudice of our time.

To those who agree with me�both of you�I say, keep up the fight against the insane secularizers of Palm Beach. Remember, it's a bunny-eat-bunny world out there."

So, who REALLY killed the Easter Bunny? Easy, you and I did. We did it just as Martin Niemöller said:

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out�
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me�
and there was no one left to speak out for me."

You see, we didn't speak out. We didn't speak out when the radical left, the MSM to the extent that they didn't call "foul," and the secularists declared war on faith and its symbols.

Happy Easter everyone, enjoy it while it is still legal.

Update: Ogre at Ogre's Politics and Views has a new posting regarding the Colorado Supreme Court throwing out a conviction because a juror read a bible. You thought the above was just a joke, I meant it when I said enjoy it while it is still legal.

Posted by GM Roper at March 27, 2005 02:07 PM | TrackBack