Christmas letter criticized

A Miami-Dade County commissioner praised “the birth of our King, Jesus” in a Christmas message mailed to constituents on county letterhead, offending some constituents and a civil-rights group for injecting a religious endorsement into official county correspondence.

Commissioner Javier Souto’s office mailed the message to residents in District 10, which he has represented since 1993.

“We are approaching the happiest and most significant days in our calendar: Christmas and the Holidays,” he wrote. “The Brotherhood of Men is never felt stronger than during these last days of the year when we commemorate the birth of our King, Jesus, the Son of God. It is now when we see with enormous clarity what is truly important and what is not.”

The letter was criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union for violating the separation required between church and state, even in messages tied to the celebration of a Christian holiday. The group called Souto’s letter to constituents “inappropriate” for official communication from a county official.

“Christmas is one of the two sacred holidays on the Christian calendar — we all understand that,” wrote Howard Simon, director of the ACLU’s Florida division. “But it is inappropriate for a public official to use the trappings of his office to promote religious views to the exclusion of others.”

Jorge Rosell, a Miami real estate broker, said it seemed overly sensitive to turn the holiday letter into a controversy. Others disagreed.

Joan Schaeffer, who is Jewish and a longtime homeowner in Souto’s district, said the commissioner’s letter left her in tears. “I was very angry. And I cried,” said the semi-retired social worker and former volunteer president of Temple Israel of Greater Miami. “I just feel so sad that somebody who supposedly represents me would do something that hurtful to me and my people.”