Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 23, 2005 19:18:37 GMT -5
To get this back on the topic Mr. A started it with...
I ran across this article: What War on Christmas?
A nice, simple reflection, but I found this part asking a good question:
She also mentions something I'd only vaguely heard about before. And I like her response to it:
I ran across this article: What War on Christmas?
A nice, simple reflection, but I found this part asking a good question:
This is the time of year, though, when those of us who aren't Christian, or who don't celebrate Christmas, most feel our minority status. I've experienced this especially acutely since my children started to look longingly at shopping mall Santas (Santa's a nice guy, honey, but he's not for us) and ask why there are so few menorahs or dreidels among the reindeer and Christmas trees. (How to break this gently? Their team has a lot more players.)
I'm not one who would argue that we ought to Grinch our way out of this discomfort by aggressively de-Christmafying. And to the extent that the war-on-Christmas crowd is simply reacting to knee-jerk political correctness, I'm with them. It's idiotic to call the Capitol conifer a Holiday Tree -- as it has been for the past several years, until it was re-, um, christened this year. If, as Gibson reports, the Plano, Tex., schools really have an edict banning red-and-green decorations (was it either color or just the combination?) -- well, you don't have to be Christian to find this more than a little silly.
But there is an ugly, bullying aspect to this dispute, in which the pro-Christmas forces are not only asking, reasonably, that their religion be treated with equal status and respect but in which they are attacking legitimate efforts at inclusivity. It's this sense of aggrieved victimhood that confuses me: What, exactly, is so threatening about calling the school holiday a winter break rather than Christmas vacation?
I'm not one who would argue that we ought to Grinch our way out of this discomfort by aggressively de-Christmafying. And to the extent that the war-on-Christmas crowd is simply reacting to knee-jerk political correctness, I'm with them. It's idiotic to call the Capitol conifer a Holiday Tree -- as it has been for the past several years, until it was re-, um, christened this year. If, as Gibson reports, the Plano, Tex., schools really have an edict banning red-and-green decorations (was it either color or just the combination?) -- well, you don't have to be Christian to find this more than a little silly.
But there is an ugly, bullying aspect to this dispute, in which the pro-Christmas forces are not only asking, reasonably, that their religion be treated with equal status and respect but in which they are attacking legitimate efforts at inclusivity. It's this sense of aggrieved victimhood that confuses me: What, exactly, is so threatening about calling the school holiday a winter break rather than Christmas vacation?
She also mentions something I'd only vaguely heard about before. And I like her response to it:
The latest alleged perfidy is the failure of the White House Christmas card to mention Christmas, instead expressing "best wishes for a holiday season of hope and happiness" and featuring a verse from Psalms. William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, calls this evidence that the administration has "capitulated to the worst elements in our culture." I call it a recognition, especially welcome at a time of sectarian violence, that not all the 1.4 million folks on the Christmas list are Christian.