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About a month before Christmas, 2013, I received an email with a link to a song that begins: "If you don't see 'Merry Christmas' in the window, no you don't go in that store." It's a catchy little tune, for sure, but I find it annoying.
The song itself is "Say Merry Christmas" - American Christian Life United (ACLU) choir - Vocal by Carrie Rinderer. You can Google it if you're interested.
I can't help wondering what these people thought about Coca Cola's glossolalic "America the Beautiful" Super Bowl commercial.
An old Army buddy of mine sends me stuff like this around this time every year. I'll probably get this reference from him this year, too. His position is that there are "good" people and "bad" people in the world. The "good" people are those who Take The Lord Jesus As Their Personal Savior, and the "bad" people are everybody else, including those who associate with or tolerate them. This includes: Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, Confucianists, Shintos, Sikhs, Jainists, Baha'is, Cao Dais, Cheondoists, Tenrikyos, Wiccans, World Messianists, Seicho-no-leists, Rastafarians, atheists, and not a few Catholics.
He is deeply concerned that the "bad" people are engaged in a vile conspiracy to deprive the "good" people of their God-given right to force everybody to practice the "good" brand of religion by promoting "bad" Satan-inspired customs like saying "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings," or other intrinsically evil practices.
He has personally emailed me that "the government" is about to make display of the Ten Commandments (a scriptural catechetical formula for Jewish law) illegal, remove "In God We Trust" from our money, and prohibit the "good" people from praying, at least as they define the term. He blames "the ACLU" the same way some black people blame "slavery."
He keeps saying, "What's the fuss all about," as if anybody but reactionaries like him are making what could be called a "fuss." I consider him to be a member of a group I call Generically Retarded, Ignorant, Negatively Christian, Hypercritical, Effete Snobs - "GRINCHES!"
In the landmark Supreme Court decision about Christmas decorations in Lynch v Donnelly, the Court ruled that there was "insufficient evidence to establish that the inclusion of the creche (manger scene) is a purposeful or surreptitious effort to express some kind of subtle governmental advocacy of a particular religious" view. They also stated that the Constitution "affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any." The Court noted "a legitimate secular purpose within a larger holiday display to celebrate the season and the origins of Christmas which has long been a part of Western culture."
In a concurring opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noted, "The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community. Government can run afoul of that prohibition in two principal ways. One is excessive entanglement with religious institutions ... The second and more direct infringement is government endorsement or disapproval of religion. Endorsement sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community."
Justices Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens dissented. They argued that the secular purpose of celebrating of a national holiday could have been done without a clearly religious symbol that supports only one religion to the exclusion of others giving one group public approval of their views. The government recognition of Christmas previously had only been to recognize the secular parts of Christmas, such as spending time with family. They noted that "Those who believe in the message of the Nativity receive the unique and exclusive benefit of public recognition and approval of their views...a significant symbolic benefit to religion..." They argued "The effect on minority religious groups, as well as on those who may reject religion, is to convey the message that their views are not similarly worthy of public recognition nor entitled to public support. It was precisely this sort of chauvinism that the Establishment Clause was intended forever to prohibit."
The voting was perilously close. If any one of the concurring Justices had voted the other way, the city of Pawtucket would have had to remove the manger from their Christmas decorations. It would have made unconstitutional every act or event that could reasonably be interpreted as suggesting government recognition of Christmas as a religious holiday. The whole argument in Lynch is based on the fact that, whatever its religious origins, Christmas is in fact (in the United States at least), a secular holiday of gift giving, visiting Santa Claus, spending time with friends and family, watching Frosty the Snow Man on TV, shopping for seasonal items, and striving for a little more Peace on Earth. What's not to like?
The GRINCHES are trying mightily to change that! They don't want you to shop in stores that don't officially recognize that Christmas is, and here I quote, "all about the Baby Jesus and my Savior's day of birth." They seem to want those who believe in this message of the Nativity to "receive the unique and exclusive benefit of public recognition and approval of their views, and to send a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community."
I note that the focus is shopping in stores. They're OK with playing in parks "if you don't see 'Merry Christmas'," or watching sports events, or going to movies, or eating at restaurants, or drinking at bars. They seem to feel that there is some special religious significance associated with shopping! What religion considers shopping part of its liturgy, I'd like to know?
This GRINCH attitude doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. This year our pastor, who claims that "the government is taking away our religious freedoms" by allowing stores to remain open on Sunday and requiring federally mandated health benefits for those employed by "The Little Sisters of the Poor," has been making available free "Put Christ Back Into Christmas" signs. My guess is that he will be among the first to bitch about it if "the government" allows only the same public recognition of Christmas that it now shows to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (on December 8th, nine months before the Nativity of Mary on September 8th).
This year, supposedly "Christian" citizens of Knightstown, Indiana, put a large cross on their municipal Christmas tree as a supposed "exercise of their religious rights," conveniently ignoring the fact that the display was paid for by ALL the city's taxpayers, including presumably Muslim Fatima Hussein who wrote the article for the Indy Star. The town council voted to take it down after the city attorney pointed out that it would create a federal lawsuit that would cost the town its budget and serve no good purpose. The "Christians" responded with outrage for those on the side of the Constitution of United States. The fight is not over! Where are these people from, anyway?
My personal opinion is that if these people were really Christians, they would know that the empty cross represents Easter, not Christmas, It's Christmas, people, not Crossmas (or Xmas, which they don't seem to like, either). Besides Christmas is supposedly the time for "good will," which seems to be sorely lacking in this case. These folks seem to be pretending to be associated with religion which they demonstrably are not, which is the traditional way to celebrate Halloween, another Christian-based secular holiday. Perhaps they need a special holiday just for themselves. I would nominate April First, April Fools' Day!
In yet another newsworthy example of religious bigotry, some parents in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, circulated the rumor, without a shred of evidence, that the cancellation of the traditional Centerville Elementary School fifth grade production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" was because some "'unnamed parents' took offense at the words uttered by Tiny Tim, 'God bless us, every one'." (In an update to the rumor, a local TV station suggested a Jewish family might be to blame. Reading the Internet report from their website also downloaded two viruses to my computer, so I won't reference it here, although it does have a link from the Washington Post website. Be careful!)
The principal was careful to explain in a letter to all the parents, since removed from the Internet, that the play was canceled because the 20 or so classroom hours of preparation, which was not in the fifth grade curriculum, took time from other instruction that was. Neither the Fox News reporter nor the outraged parents are buying it! They aren't suggesting any resolution or compromise, either! The protesters maintain that "Lancaster County is a conservative area and has a rich history of 'religious liberty'," by which they mean "exclusively Protestant Christian" religious liberty. Anyone else (like the innocent Jewish family, for example) can go straight to hell!
"Peace on earth?" SCREW THAT!
Can't we all just get along?
I think the absolute best way to celebrate Christmas was demonstrated some time ago by a the family of a Muslim friend of mine who owns a popular restaurant near my home. Faced with the need to keep the restaurant open for hungry Christmas patrons and the desire of the Christian workers to have "their Savior's day of birth" off, this remarkable family - mom, dad, uncles, aunts, the kids - took over and gave their Christian employees the day to celebrate the way they chose while the Muslims cooked Christmas dinner. This is "love thy neighbor" - the one commandment of Christianity - at it's very finest. I have to admit, as a Christian, I am embarrassed to be bested at my own game by people who aren't even playing.
As most of us know, freedom isn't free. Our freedom to worship - or not - as each of us chooses, comes at the price of at least tolerating the existence in our midst of Westboro Baptists, Terry Jones' Dove World Outreach Church, and, yes, the GRINCHES. If the GRINCHES have their way, Christmas will become a purely religious holiday, one day that is "all about the Baby Jesus and my Savior's day of birth," instead of "the most wonderful time of the year." My guess is that if that happens, the ACLU and others will be quick to file lawsuits all over the United States banning government from recognizing it in ANY way, such as letting federal workers off from work on that day or allowing Christmas decorations in city hall or the White House Christmas tree. Then the GRINCHES won't have to worry about the stores wishing you a Merry Christmas, because it will be just another day they have to be at work on time, like at the office of Scrooge and Marley.
Of course, I recognize the right of the GRINCHES to shop where they please and refuse to do business if the stores don't accommodate the bigoted practices of their intolerant religion. One of the benefits of this is that those of us with a little more love for our fellow man can shop where we won't have to associate with them. God bless America!
Happy Kwanzaa!