A New Jersey city council member resigned from her position after the council chose to add the word “Christmas” to the name of its tree-lighting ceremony.
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“It looks exactly like a Christmas tree, but I guess you can call it whatever you want”, Hailey Ortiz, a Roselle Park resident, said.
Roselle Park mayor Carl A. Hokanson told Eyewitness News that he wanted to bring the word “Christmas” back into the equation. Changing the ceremony, she said, “turned it from a non-religious event to a religious one”.
Charlene Storey, a “non-believer” who was raised Catholic, said in her resignation letter that the change “cuts non-Christians out of the loop and favors one religion”, NJ.com reports. Most municipalities – including many in the Kawarthas – collect discarded natural Christmas trees and chip them for use as mulching materials.
According to N.J.com, Mayor Hokanson, whom Storey praised as a promising leader for Roselle Park, remarked only that, “Everybody’s entitled to his beliefs”.
Storey also indicated that she was completely caught off-guard about Thursday’s vote, and that the decision seemingly came out of nowhere.
“I like nature, I love it, it’s in my blood and the farm is a good expression of what I do”, Bastien said.
According to Storey’s statement, 33.8 percent of Roselle Park’s population do not identify with one particular religion.
Storey’s resignation from the council in the city of about 13,000 garnered widespread attention. By the time the first week of December comes to a close, countless LED lights around the country have been switched on, illuminating these beacons of the holiday season.
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Fraser Fir – A Christmas tree that’s become very popular in recent years, the Fraser Fir is known for holding its attractive dark blue-green needles and its pleasant scent.
