So, This is Christmas?
| By Campus Progress - Nov 1st, 2005 at 4:40 pm EST |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
With the holiday season pretty much starting this week, FOX's John Gibson has begun the annual attack against progressives for "hating Christmas." Check out our latest article on Gibson's new book.
So, to repeat Ben Adler's question, is this bait worth taking? Is the "war on Christmas" an issue progressives should take part in discussing? And if so, how?
So, to repeat Ben Adler's question, is this bait worth taking? Is the "war on Christmas" an issue progressives should take part in discussing? And if so, how?
!
Comments are closed for this post.
And why should we want to get it going, as there IS no "war on Christmas?" Why let them have a way to keep bringing up putting religion in the public sphere? There's nothing we should have to respond to: don't swing at strawmen.
The response: "Who on the Left do you see trying to eliminate Christmas?"
Their counter: "The ACLU"
And that's where we'll get--it'll come down to them using a group devoted to protecting the First Amendment to define the entire non-republican position, and ignoring anything else.
So why go through the aggravation? Just ask them if their problem isn't that we're really just demanding that Christians live under the same law as Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Atheists and everyone else?
Christmas is a secular holiday, enjoyable by pretty much all Americans.
Though, FWIW, a rendition of "I had a little dreidel" or two wouldn't hurt. ;)
The second part of the sentence is true, but how exactly is Christmas secular? It is the celebration of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ the Son of God. To many Americans, myself included, it has become about gift-giving to your friends and relatives, but it is not a secular holiday. New Year's is a secular holiday.
...
Just because you can bastardize a holiday in the mainstream culture does not make it a secular holiday.
Sure it does. Culture is malleable, and we've molded Christmas to our liking.
Just wow.
At the same time, I also think that saying "well, they can have a santa claus and sing 'jingle bells', that should be fine, but none of this other stuff" is somewhat of a disregard for what many see as being the most important holiday in their religion. If people want Christmas to be expressed in schools because of its religious significance, this hardly seems to be what they're going for.
Personally, I think that putting up a manger without putting up decorations representing several different religions (a menorah, or some kwanzaa decorations, for example) is exclusionary and shows a school's support for the one religion over the others (the Court expressed this, I believe, in Allegheny v. ACLU).
The First Amendment was written to protect the free exercise of religion by anyone. Now that includes secularists. If secularists wish not to follow a faith, or to support secular humanism (whatever that is) in the public square, that is their right. BUT it does not mean that secularists get to banish all other faiths from the public square. Free exercise means that everyone gets exercise the tenets of their faith freely.
There is nothing wrong with a city square, for example, having a nativity scene on its grounds, so long as community groups of other faiths would have the same opportunity to have symbols of their faith put on those grounds at their request.
In reality, it doesn't always play out that way (though in your example it'd probably work fine)...
...What happens when the Church of Constant Masturbation (Yes, an actual group) wants to set up their... er... "nativity scene" on state property?
The Church of the Subgenius (Which I love, google it if you've never heard)?
The government won't let the Church of Constant Masturbation put a giant phallus on state grounds to let everyone know that your lower extremities' Feelin' is the Reason For the Season. It just won't happen.
So then you get into the grey area, where the government is deciding whether some religions "count", and some religions "don't".
Assuming something like that doesn't arise, and the only groups that make requests are the usual suspects, and a request by the Church of Constant Masturbation would have the state simply tossing everything out so as not to be picky and choosy... You end up with an awkward scenario where the fringe religions don't have the ability to put their own stuff up, only the ability to de facto 'take down' the stuff of other people.
I'm a Liberal, but I like Christmas. I think any person of any religion can like Christmas.
Besides, it's not true that all Jews celebrate Hannukah, so why should it be true that all Christians celebrate Christmas?
I say that people like Christmas, like it for the gift-giving and stuff, and not because it's a Christian holiday.
People, you do NOT have to be Christian to celebrate Christmas (just like you don't have to be Jewish to celebrate Hannukah).