There aren't any serious threats to Christians' abilities to celebrate Christmas. They exist only in Bill O'Reilly's mind. (And even in his own mind, he's completely making stuff up.)
But that doesn't stop the Religious Right from getting all up in arms and trying to swing the pendulum completely back in the other direction. I've spoken to a few of my religious friends, and many of them are convinced that there's a war being fought with the PC police on one side, them on the other, and their right to celebrate their holiday hanging in the balance.
As a result, you see a number of people who you would normally consider intelligent writing in to whatever publications will run their letters, offering up arguments that essentially boil down to "Christians are the majority. Deal with it."
It makes me wonder where some of these people were educated. It was hard enough dealing with the notion of people failing to aspire to ideals that don't include freedom of speech (e.g. - the "dissent is un-American" debate still lingering today). It was even tougher dealing with the notion that many people really don't dig religious tolerance anymore (e.g. - post 9/11 Muslim-bashing). Now we see behavior that's indicative of people failing to understand that their own Bill of Rights protects them from the "tyranny of the majority" types of situations that are so well summed up by a "Christians are the majority, deal with it" attitude.
This all makes me think that we need to, at a minimum, send everybody back to history class for some lessons on the ideals to which our forefathers aspired.
Posted by THespos at December 27, 2005 11:18 AM | TrackBackFirst off, let me wish you a Happy Festivus!
Next forgive me when I say that when Christians state "we are the majority deal with it," they are being knukleheads. That's hardly an enlightened way to promote anything Christian.
And lastly let me say that there is nothing in the Constitution that requires that religion, even Christianity, needs to be abolished from public life -- in fact just the opposite. Remember the often quoted clause, "separation of church and state" does NOT appear anywhere in the constitution. It does require that there is no establishment of a state religion, ie Church of England, AND that no law will be passed that will prevent the practice of religion. But no talk about separation of anything.
So if people want to light Chistmas Trees in the public square, or wish someone a Happy Hanukkah at the local community college there is nothing wrong or illegal about it.
BTW, speaking of founding fathers, they would be pretty shocked that there is any debate about this at all. Religion and spirituality (yes, mostly Christianity but a few deists too)was central to their motivations to establish a democracy. The reality is that religion was far more integrated into government during our early decades than it is now...and people were generally fine with it.
If we want to honor them we should let people celebrate when and where they like -- after all what's so bad about wishing for good will amoung men and peace on earth.
All comments are property of the individual poster who left them. Everything else, copyright 2005, Tom Hespos