The following artcile can be found here
Baby Jesus ban lifted
By BEN SHARKEY and MARK SKELSEY
December 1, 2004
A FAST food chain yesterday admitted it was overzealous in its pursuit of political correctness when it banned one of its Sydney stores from displaying a traditional Christmas nativity scene.
Last Thursday, Westfield Hornsby Oporto franchise owner Charlie Saliba was told to remove his nativity scene – depicting baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men and a shepherd – for fear it would offend non-Christian customers.
Mr Saliba, a Catholic, said: “I am Maltese and we are very much into our Christmas decorations . . .
they told me take it down and I thought it was a shame because, without a nativity scene, it’s not Christmas.
“I’ve been putting the nativity scene up for the past 3½ years and have not had one complaint. I have had a lot of compliments.”
Oporto chief executive Jeff Fisher had previously told The Daily Telegraph the chain supported generic decorations over nativity scenes because Australia was a multicultural society and it would be wrong to push any one religious belief.
Mr Fisher was singing a different tune yesterday after a wave of public opinion.
“The issue [of the nativity scene] is obviously something the community feels very strongly about,” he said. “We have listened to the community and corrected the situation.
“We are guilty of being over-sensitive by wanting to keep the decorations to a general nature. We tried to be politically correct and that was overzealous.”
Yesterday morning the nativity scene, which cost $500 to construct, was returned to its pride of place next to the shop’s second most sacred object: the chip machine.
Regular customer Noreen Dillon, 65, said it was good to see sanity prevail.
“I think sometimes people are afraid of upsetting minority groups, who in reality don’t care about the nativity scenes anyway,” the Wahroonga resident said. “I have Muslim neighbours and they wish me a happy Christmas so what’s the big deal?”
Mr Saliba who said Muslim and Jewish staff had not complained about the nativity scene and were happy to have it in the store.
Keysar Trad, a director of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association, said Muslims would have no objection to nativity scenes.
“We celebrate the life of Christ and see him as one of the five greatest people who ever lived and a prophet of God,” he said.
Westfield public relations manager Julia Clark said most of the company’s shopping centres had nativity scenes.
The only two without were because of space, she said. Even Bankstown Square, amid a large population of non-Christian backgrounds, has a nativity scene.
The Daily Telegraph
This report was published at www.dailytelegraph.com.au
Copyright 2004 News Limited. All times AEST
not the best thing while at work is it, so to keep my pants up I used a 25metre rope to do so, and for the rest of the afternoon this rope followed behind me, much to Steve & Robs amusement especially when the tied into onto a door handle, or just step on it! Not funny, I then found a piece of string, so come to Commy pub to see my new belt.