The debate over what the holiday parade should be called has resulted in a mess in Mobile,

Mobile canceled its Jolly Holiday Parade on Thursday afternoon, only to scramble a few hours later to revive what it could of Saturday’s Christmas season event.

At 3 p.m. Thursday — citing e-mail and telephone threats from residents opposed to a parade without the word Christmas in its title — Mobile Christmas Parade Inc., a separate nonprofit organization that has an eight-member board of directors, announced there would be no parade this year.

The group, which organizes the event, said it was concerned about the safety of the 2,600 children who had signed up to march downtown. Mobile Mayor Mike Dow then said he would not accept the cancellation of a parade with a history dating back to 1945.

Three hours later, volunteers with Main Street Mobile, a city-staffed organization formed to promote downtown, announced that a parade will roll, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. It will be called the Mobile Christmas Holiday Parade.

“As Mayor Dow told us, if the parade is just me sitting in Bienville Square Saturday with Santa Claus, then we’re still having a parade,” said Mead Miller, Main Street Mobile’s president. “This community is not going to be held hostage to threats or to grinches.”

Let’s remember that the “grinches” are so-called “Christians” who threatened the safety of parade participants over a name! These so-called “Christians” need to stop worrying about what things are called and start worrying about the kind of people they have become.

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