Yeah, yeah: you’ve heard enough about it.
But this is really diabolic.
Not the attacks on Christmas–nothing devilish about them, for they don’t really exist.
What’s really diabolic is the design behind the outcry against attacks on Christmas.
Defending Christmas? No, that’s not what it’s about. What we have here is another attack on diversity.
I’m not going to bother to link to the blogs and articles and O’Reilly transcripts that are sprouting like mushrooms in a dark, manure-filled barn. You can find them for yourself; it would be harder to find a way to avoid them. To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a dozen websites either upset by the attacks on Christmas or making fun of the first kind.
What I haven’t seen is anyone stating the obvious (they probably have said it–as I said, I simply haven’t seen it): these people claiming they are defending Christmas aren’t–they are attacking the idea that all beliefs should be respected.
The best defense, they decided, is a good offense. As they really have nothing to defend, all they can really do is attack, anyway.
Saying “Happy Holidays” in no way disses Christmas. To argue that it does is laughable. What it does is open things up. It says, “If you have a holiday at this time of the year, I want you to celebrate it joyfully.” Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or (during some years) Ramadan: celebrate to your heart’s content… I’m all for you. That’s what “Happy Holidays” says.
Again, “Happy Holidays” does not belittle Christmas. It opens things up to include more. Saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is an indication of a willingness to bring people in rather than keeping them out.
What is wrong with that? Why is that an attack on Christmas?
Patently, it is not.
And why not call a Christmas tree a holiday tree? The tradition of decorating a pine stems not from Christianity but from an ancient Germanic past. Why not, then, expand it so that it can include others besides Christians? How does that hurt the Christians? How is that an attack?
The people who are promoting this “movement” to stop the attack on Christmas know all of this.
But they don’t care.
Their purpose is not to protect Christmas. It needs no protection.
Their purpose is to turn back the diversity clock to a point where Jews, Arabs, Hindus, Buddhists and others are on the outside of American society.
This movement is no accident. It is xenophobic in its base and a careful political attack on diversity.
It’s easy to laugh off this movement to “protect” Christmas.
What’s behind it, though, is a perversion of Christianity that could easily lead us back to burning crosses.
So, laugh… but take this seriously.
