PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The governor said Tuesday that lawmakers upset with his decision to call the blue spruce erected in the Statehouse a holiday tree instead of a Christmas tree should focus their energy on feeding the poor.
Calling the 17-foot-tall spruce a holiday tree is in keeping with Rhode Island’s founding in 1636 by religious dissident Roger Williams as a haven for tolerance, where government and religion were kept separate, independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee said.
“I would encourage all those engaged in this discussion — whatever their opinion on the matter — to use their energy and enthusiasm to make a positive difference in the lives of their fellow Rhode Islanders,” Chafee said, offering an initiative to feed the needy as a good place to start.
But critics of Chafee’s seasonal semantics said he is taking political correctness too far — and defying the will of the Legislature. In January, the state House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution declaring that the tree customarily erected this time of year be referred to “as a ‘Christmas tree’ and not as a ‘holiday tree’ or other non-traditional terms.”
The resolution’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Doreen Costa, said she plans to erect and decorate a tree at her Statehouse office on Dec. 6, the day Chafee plans to host a tree-lighting event. Costa said she’ll be taking up a collection of canned goods.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Providence also criticized Chafee’s decision not to use the word “Christmas.”
Chafee’s decision “is most disheartening and divisive,” Bishop Thomas Tobin said in a statement. He said it ignores American traditions and is “an affront to the faith of many citizens.”
Chafee isn’t the first Rhode Island governor to refer to the annual Statehouse tree as a holiday tree. His predecessor, Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri, used both “holiday tree” and “Christmas tree” in his correspondence.
Other governors have made no specific reference to Christmas at all, with invitations to “holiday celebrations” featuring a “tree lighting.”
