Florida Mall Bans Christmas Music People Understand

What is it about Florida and Christmas this year? Today a mall in Sarasota, Florida announced it would only allow performing choral groups to perform Christmas music as long as it was in a language other than English. The mall specifically targets Christian music as a no-no.

“For choral groups, the Mall prefers no clearly recognizable Christian music, such as carols sung in English, spirituals or gospel,” reads a memo released from the University Town Center Mall in Sarasota. “Classical holiday music or music sung in a foreign language such as Latin, French, Spanish, Italian or German is fine.”

Famed Christmas crusaders known as the American Family Association jumped all over this news. They said:

“This means traditional Christmas hymns like ‘O, Holy Night’ or ‘Silent Night’ will apparently not be allowed unless, as the memo states, they are sung in a foreign language. And since most choirs wouldn’t learn ‘Joy to the World’ in French or German, the mall has seemingly covered all its anti-Christian bases.”

Well, as you can imagine Christmas loving folks jumped all over this one. The mall today quickly retracted the statement saying the policy was published by a third party without review of the mall management.

Right.