Chicago officials are threatening to drop support of the Christkindlmarket Festival, unless The Nativity Story film is dropped as an official sponsor.
The 11th annual German-American festival is the largest Christmas market in the U.S., attracting more than a million visitors from around the world each year.
Cindy Gatziolis, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Mayor’s Office of Special Events, said having a Christmas movie as a sponsor might offend some people.
“(It would) be insensitive to the many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts," she said.
Christina Kounelias, an executive vice president with New Line Cinema, said the studio planned to spend $12,000 in Chicago as part of an advertising campaign. She said that as far as she knew, the festival was the only instance in which the studio was turned down.
Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America (CWA), called the city's action “over the top” political correctness.
“You want to make sure that it is not an urban legend before you take it seriously,” she said. “Have the inmates running the Chicago asylum not noticed the ‘Christ’ in ‘Christkindlmarket?’ If this kind of government influence over event organizers doesn’t violate the Illinois Human Rights Act, what does? Hopefully, saner minds will prevail after the good people of Chicago tell City Hall that this kind of anti-Christ intolerance has no place in their kind of town.”
