(Video Above: An ABC 33/40 report on atheists trying to hijack the Piedmont, Ala., Christmas parade)
PIEDMONT, Ala. — A group of out-of-state atheist tried to keep an east Alabama town from celebrating the birth of Christ in their Christmas parade. It didn’t work.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) threatened Piedmont, Ala., with a lawsuit if it didn’t change the theme of its Christmas parade from “Keeping Christ in Christmas.”
The theme “alienates non-Christians and others in Piedmont who do not in fact have a ‘strong belief in prayers’ by turning them into political outsiders in their own community,” according to FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel. “The sentiment of ‘Keeping Christ in Christmas’ does not qualify as a secular celebration.”
The attorney’s letter told the mayor to find a “more appropriate, more inclusive, and constitutional theme” for the parade.
“It was a great theme,” mayor Bill Baker told Fox News in response. “I was totally shocked when I received the letter. It’s a small town. It’s a small Christmas parade. We didn’t think there would be any problems at all.”
But the mayor might should have expected the pushback. This is actually the second time FFRF, which is based in Wisconsin, decided to target tiny Piedmont, a town of less than 5,000 residents.
Earlier this year, the “perpetually offended” atheists threatened Piedmont with a lawsuit if the high school football team didn’t stop praying before its games.
It backfired.
Rather than it being “officially” led, everyone now just comes to gather on the field before games, “and as citizens, we recited the Lord’s Prayer – out loud,” Mayor Baker said. “One week we had the entire football field encircled by people. It was really wonderful and very moving to me to see people come together and praise God and speak His name out loud.”
And in a similar fashion, the atheists’ efforts to hijack the Christmas parade had the exact opposite effect than what they were hoping for.
“Nothing has really changed,” the mayor said prior to the event. “We still have the same religious floats. We still have the churches. We still have the beauty queens. We’re still going to have this wonderful Christian parade regardless of if we have a theme or not.”
And in the end, it was the largest Christmas parade in Piedmont history, with countless floats prominently featuring signs proclaiming the true “Reason for the Season.”
“If all the good Christian people would stick together and lift up the name of Jesus Christ and not let these atheists and non-believers scare us like they do,” one of the local parade organizers told ABC 33/40, “it would be a better world.”
[h/t Todd Starnes / Fox Radio]
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— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 3, 2014
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