It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like the War on Christmas
In addition to touting the virtues of real wars based on fake facts, this time of year the far right also likes to celebrate a fake war: the one supposedly being waged on Christmas.
And though we haven’t yet carved Thanksgiving turkeys, the battle over holiday semantics is already under way.
Dan Neil has an amusing column in today’s L.A. Times in which he notes the absurdity of the American Family Association’s beef with The Gap – the group insisted that the clothing retailer was refusing to use the word “Christmas” in its ads. And yet, twirling/jumping/spinning across TV screens across the country, are Gap dancers who chant: “Go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go Kwanzaa, go solstice. . . . Do whatever you wannukkah and to all a cheery night.” Christmas isn’t even hidden among other winter holidays – it’s front and center!
And Fox News, of course, is also leading the charge, pointing to a Boston elementary school as evidence that the war on Christmas is “raging again.” But, according to watchdog Media Matters, “the school’s ban reportedly includes all items that can be associated with a specific religion and is not limited to Christmas.”
The governor of Kentucky also became a casualty of the fake war. When the town of Frankfort elected to have a “holiday tree,” Christians quickly pounced on Steve Beshear, forcing him to cave and revert back to calling the thing a Christmas tree.
Anyone who has walked into a Target since Halloween ended knows full well that Christmas is a massive, all-consuming holiday that is going absolutely nowhere. Christians are right to be proud of such a wonderful time of year – but not at the expense of other people who have their own traditions and holidays that are just as important to them. Not to mention people who choose not to celebrate anything, and who probably appreciate having the season shoved down their throats in a little gentler way.
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Nice post. I say this: anyone who cares to ascribe religious values to the holidays, whatever they call them, is certainly free to do so. But for the rest of us, the holiday tradition is just that — a tradition. It need not be religiously colored to have meaning. Nothing is more obnoxious than someone insisting that the holidays are all about whatever it is they believe.
If it wasn’t Christmas they would pick something else. It is amazing to me how a group that can lay claim to the majority of the people in this country can still have the nerve to play the victim. Over EVERYTHING. I guess it does make a good defense though. If I answered every question posed to me with shouts of,”Why are you attacking me?!” I’d probably never have to answer an awkward question again.
On a serious note, the real shame/confusion stems from the fact that for the most part, its not an act. People I’ve talked to truly believe they are an oppressed and victimized majority.
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