Originally Posted by SEXYDEATH
Although that was horribly worded, this issue was predicted over a year ago. I live in the United States so I'm not sure what the political system in UK has laid out, but in the US, "church and state" are not allowed to be mixed.
Part of the reason for this disagreement is because the United States is all about diversity. The US encourages has many cultures blended in and everyone must learn to respect each other's rights. Since people of non-Christian backgrounds are citizens of the US, all the rights granted to any US citizen are granted to them.
Since saying "Merry/Happy Christmas" promotes Christianity, many people outside the Christian religion have taken notice of this and spoke their minds.
All the complaints were followed by a famous Supreme Court decision in Engel vs. Vitale.
One day in the fall of 1958, Steven Engel visited his son's classroom in the Searington Elementary School in the Herricks school district. Engel, a Jew, was not prepared for what he saw his son doing.
The Board of Education of Union Free School, New York was instructing the students of their district to say a specified nondenominational prayer each day. Some parents responded by calling the prayer a violation of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. Since the government funds the public school systems, allowing prayer inside a classroom means the US government is suppporting a religion. The court agreed with the parents, saying that: "it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayer."
After said event, many complaints related to separation of church and state have been filed and many more are predicted to come.