Green Bay's Festivus Pole

It all started with a Christmas nativity scene at Green Bay's city hall.

That simple display set off a frenzy of demands for competing displays, even a Festivus pole.

From the Green Bay Press-Gazette:

Frank Costanza would be proud, perhaps even a little misty-eyed.

In an homage to Jerry Stiller's character on "Seinfeld" — often credited for bringing the Festivus holiday to the rest of us — Sean Ryan of Allouez on Saturday asked Mayor Jim Schmitt for permission to display a Festivus pole on the overhang at the northwest entrance to City Hall.

But it's unlikely that the six-foot undecorated aluminum pole at the heart of the semi-fictitious holiday will stand next to the Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in City Council President Chad Fradette's nativity display.

"If we're going to approve things, it needs to be a religion — this is just pop culture," Schmitt said Saturday. "This is kind of making a laughing matter of something that's rather serious."

Created by author Daniel O'Keefe in the 1970s and popularized by Seinfeld two decades later, Festivus is an annual holiday celebrated by many Americans both in earnest and jest on Dec. 23. Gov. Jim Doyle has even installed a Festivus pole — manufactured by a Milwaukee-based company — at the Governor's mansion in the past few years.

Gov. Jim Doyle has installed a Festivus pole at the Governor's mansion?

That's hilarious!


Gov. Jim Doyle (right) poses with his Festivus pole.

Check out this site.

More Festivus pole photos here.

Ryan's request is the latest in a series from individuals who want to add to the pantheon above one of the entrance's to City Hall since Fradette received the go-ahead from the city's advisory committee last week to install his display. Fradette said he proposed the display in response to criticism lobbed at the city of Peshtigo over a nativity display on public property there.

Both Fradette and Schmitt opened the display to other religions, and at least seven requests have been made to date.

On Friday, an Appleton man added a Wiccan wreath to the Christmas manger scene.

Another Green Bay resident hopes a peace sign she has chosen to symbolize a tenet of her Unitarian Universalism faith will join those on Monday. "When Chad (Fradette) put his up, he was doing it as an act of — he wasn't doing it an as an act to unite the community," Taku Ronsman said. "I'm trying to express the idea of inclusiveness. A peace sign reflects that."

A practicing Catholic who would prefer to see no religious displays at a government office, Ryan said his tongue-in-cheek request intends to showcase how deciding what religions to include in the display can turn to the absurd.

"I was turning over how extreme things could get and how loosely things could get interpreted," Ryan said. "Immediately, Frank Costanza came to mind."

Schmitt said "silly antics" would not help resolve the questions facing the City Council on Tuesday, when it decides of the advisory council and the mayor were right to approve Fradette's display.

The mayor said he plans to forward some preliminary guidelines to the council on Monday, including a limit on the time period for the displays and how to determine if a display is representative of a religion.

In all seriousness, I don't understand why people are so threatened by religious displays on public property.

For example, if I see a menorah, my reaction isn't to run out and demand that a statue of the infant Jesus be put alongside of it.

Granted, the Festivus pole is meant to be a joke, but what about all the sincere requests to compete with the nativity?

A Wiccan symbol now stands alongside the Christmas manger scene on the roof of City Hall's northwest entrance.

The new display is an evergreen wreath, about 3 feet in diameter, encircling a five-pointed star. It's called a pentagram and is a symbol in the Wiccan religion, which is associated with witchcraft.

The wreath and star are mounted on an easel that stands a few feet from a statue of Mary in the nativity setting that Common Council President Chad Fradette installed Wednesday night.

An Appleton man connected to a state Wiccan group dropped off the new display at City Hall on Friday afternoon.

"That's pretty," Fradette said shortly after a City Hall maintenance worker set the display up. "I'm glad there's something else up there."

A pentagram a few feet from the statue of Mary is inappropriate.

That's not being inclusive. The placement is being disrespectful. I'm sure that's the idea, to be in-your-face.

After Fradette's display was installed and he and Mayor Jim Schmitt publicized that the display area would be open to other religious displays, the city received six requests, mayoral assistant Andre Jacque said.

...Another was from a Green Bay area man wanting to install a Buddhist display. That man said he would prefer to install something in May, Jacque said.

The city also heard from a man wanting to put up an unspecified Hindu display, a woman wanting to put up a peace symbol she said is used in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and from a woman wanting to put up something promoting religion awareness and freedom from excessive holiday spending.

This is ridiculous.

I have no problem with religious displays on public property when they're put up to observe specific holidays and they coincide with the specific time of the celebrations.

Why have a Hindu or Buddhist display up now?

Should the holy month of Ramadan be recognized with a display in December?

Put the Wiccan wreath up at Halloween, not Christmas.

The displays at Green Bay's city hall are intended to challenge Christianity. They aren't meant to be religious observances.

They're meant to be attacks.

They're signs of intolerance for the celebration of Christmas.

That should offend everyone who values religious freedom and the right to worship according to the dictates of one's conscience.