WIY: I don’t know who Rabbi Becher is but I will assume he is a Talmid Chacham. The Poskim (YD 179 I think) say that any practice that started with an Avodah Zarah remains Assur. Even if the Makor is Persian or Alexandrian as Wikipedia states, it is still an Assur practice because it stems from religious reasons (even if the origin wasn’t religious itself the widespread practice-from where kneeling while proposing comes today-is indeed a church practice). And even aside from that, the Gra holds that anything done Stam by non-Jews gains a D’oraisa-level Issur of Chukas Akum if there’s no obvious logical reason for it. (The Minhag in America doesn’t seem to be to be Machmir like this Gra, though, as the major Nafka Mina is ties and most Frum people in America wear ties. I may have quoted here earlier a second reason that a tie is meant to represent a cross. Apparently, that is a myth with no historical basis.)
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