This is the single best essay that I’ve read on the subject of Christmas “wars.” <\/p>\n
Whatever your views on “the reason for the season,” whatever prejudices you harbor, whatever hatemongers have influenced your thinking, whether you call yourself a christian or not (and whether or not you even have any sense for what that could really mean), please don’t send me a single further email or a message on Facebook or a status about being a “real American” until you have read this post. <\/p>\n
I am quoting it in its entirety in case the blog goes away. I never want to lose it. Kudos to Ray Garton!<\/p>\n
An Open Letter To Christians: Merry Christmas From An Atheist<\/a>
\nPosted on December 13, 2010 by Ray Garton<\/p>\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153seasons greetings\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — I said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153merry Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And yes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m an atheist, one who loves the Christmas season so much that I tend to get into the spirit of the holiday a little earlier than most. I love the decorations, the music, the gift-giving, the mythology — all of it. This often surprises people because I tend to have a dark sense of humor and an unsentimental, pragmatic worldview. But every December, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find me singing along with Nat King Cole and Dean Martin as I decorate the tree; you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find me getting misty-eyed and sniffly when George Bailey comes to understand how many lives his mundane existence has touched and influenced; you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll hear me wishing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153merry Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — and yes, sometimes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — to total strangers. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say it again — I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m an atheist.<\/p>\n
Before I go any further, I want to make sure that word is clearly understood. There seem to be a lot of people who think an atheist is an angry, immoral person who eats babies and sodomizes house pets, and that simply isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the case. I just turned 48 years old and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been with my wife for 22 wonderful monogamous years. I am a passionate lover of animals, especially cats and dogs. I give of my time and money to charitable causes. I have never been arrested. I vote, pay my taxes and try to stay as informed as possible. I have a strong sense of justice, of right and wrong, and I adhere to it without compromise. I am a fiercely loyal friend and a lover of life — my own and others. My goal each day is to be a better person than I was yesterday and to live my life in a way that improves the lives of those around me. I point this out not to be immodest or seek praise but to show you that I am, for the most part, not unlike most people living their lives and pursuing happiness on this earth. Only one thing makes me an atheist: I am not a person of faith. I do not believe in gods or demons, heaven or hell, angels or ghosts, or anything else that requires a leap of faith in the absence of factual proof. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all being an atheist means, nothing more. It certainly doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that I hate people of faith — I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hate anyone<\/em>. You will find no more passionate supporter of America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freedom of religion than I. While I might not share your faith, I would fight to the death for your right to practice and express it, because your freedom is also my freedom. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I see the relationship between you and me: We may differ on the matter of religion and we might disagree politically, but chances are we have more in common than in conflict and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all in this together, so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no reason in the world for us to oppose one another.<\/p>\n
Having said that, I have a question: What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all this I keep hearing about a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I keep reading stories in the news about Christians who are angry because the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is often used during the Christmas season and they believe this phrase somehow diminishes the Christian celebration of Christmas. With each passing year, these stories increase in number and this sentiment becomes more hostile. TV and radio hosts keep saying that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153secularists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are trying to abolish Jesus and that Christianity is under attack, that atheists are taking a bulldozer to America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Christians. It comes up every year at this time, which happens to be my favorite time of year, and frankly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m starting to get a little irritated by it. During a season when the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153peace on earth, good will toward men\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are so often spoken and sung, a lot of people are getting angry<\/em> and talking about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — and they are the very<\/em> people who are supposed<\/em> to be singing about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153peace on earth, good will toward men!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now, maybe you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not one of them. Maybe you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t buy into this idea of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But if you are — if you honestly believe that the Christian celebration of Christmas is under attack by a secular conspiracy to remove Jesus Christ from the holiday and silence Christians — I hope you will indulge me and, for just a little while, try to look at this situation from a different perspective, one that perhaps you have not considered. Please bear with me.<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know anyone who genuinely hates Christmas. Oh, sure, people complain about it when it comes along — all the commercial hustle, the crowds, the pressure to buy, buy, buy. But ultimately, everyone I know enjoys the holiday and if asked seriously, I doubt they would change a thing. The people I know celebrate the holiday in different ways and for different reasons. Some celebrate it as a religious holiday, others as a secular holiday. There are many ways to celebrate in the Christmas season, and not all of them are Christmas. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hanukkah, the winter solstice, Yule, Kwanzaa — it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a time of the year that contains many holidays. Given that, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong with saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153holiday,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after all, means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153holy day.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It comes from the Old English word h\u00c4\u0081ligd\u00c3\u00a6g<\/em> — h\u00c4\u0081lig<\/em> meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153holy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and d\u00c3\u00a6g<\/em> meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153day\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been in use since before the 12th century. How is the acknowledgment of a season of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153holy days\u00e2\u20ac\u009d anti-Christian? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an inclusive<\/em> greeting that embraces the entire season. I usually say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153merry Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the holiday I celebrate in a secular fashion, but I often say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d too, because I am aware of the different holidays celebrated at this time of year, and that covers all<\/em> of them.<\/p>\n
But some insist that the use of the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is just another tactic in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which is part of the greater effort to remove Christianity from the United States. Where did this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d come from? When did it start? Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fighting it and why? More importantly … is this thing for real<\/em>? You might not know the answers to those questions. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. So I did some research.<\/p>\n
In 1959, the John Birch Society, a far-right organization that sees anti-American and communist conspiracies in just about everything, released a pamphlet<\/a> called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There Goes Christmas!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d written by Hubert Kregeloh. The pamphlet claimed, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas — to denude the event of its religious meaning.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The John Birch Society believed the UN was being used to crush religious belief:<\/p>\n
The UN fanatics launched their assault on Christmas in 1958, but too late to get very far before the holy day was at hand. They are already busy, however, at this very moment, on efforts to poison the 1959 Christmas season with their high-pressure propaganda. What they now want to put over on the American people is simply this: Department stores throughout the country are to utilize UN symbols and emblems as Christmas decorations.<\/strong><\/p>\n
These \u00e2\u20ac\u0153UN symbols and emblems\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were simply secular Christmas decorations that did not employ religious imagery, decorations that had been around for some time. The pamphlet claimed this was a plot to destroy Christianity and called on patriotic Americans to boycott any stores that displayed such decorations. No one took this very seriously in 1959 — this was, after all, the John Birch Society. The conspiracy theory did not catch on. But it was to come back a few decades later.<\/p>\n
In the 1990s, Peter Brimelow, a British American financial journalist, was an editor at Fortune<\/em> magazine when he decided he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He told the Daily Beast<\/a>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just got real interested in the issue because I noticed over the years there was this social shift taking place where people no longer said \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcMerry Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In his book Alien Nation<\/em>, Brimelow wrote that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153weird aliens with dubious habits\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were damaging the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ethnic core\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of white Christian America and were part of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153multicultural struggle to abolish America.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He saw the trend toward saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as part of this sinister movement and decided to do something about it.<\/p>\n
Brimelow and conservative British political journalist John O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Sullivan, who was then editor of the conservative magazine National Review<\/em>, had an idea: A yearly competition in the magazine for the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the most egregious attempt to suppress Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But before O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Sullivan could implement the idea, he was booted from his position as editor in 1997. Even the staunch conservatives at the National Review<\/em> wanted nothing to do with Brimelow and O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Sullivan and their increasingly hostile attitudes toward racial minorities and immigrants. So Brimelow founded VDare<\/em>, an anti-immigration online journal which the Southern Poverty Law Center categorized as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hate journal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in 2003. VDare<\/em> became the home of Brimelow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Annual War on Christmas Competition.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The winner of the competition in 2001 was Tom Piatak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Happy Holidays? Bah! Humbug!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a>. In the article, Tom Piatak writes that today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s celebration of Christmas in America bears a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153closer resemblance to the Nazis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Julfest<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d than the Christmases of old, like those celebrated during Piatak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s childhood. He specifically targets other holidays and religions as the source of the problem:<\/p>\n
Teaching children about Kwanzaa, rather than about the Christmas carols and spirituals developed by blacks, inculcates negative lessons about whites instead of positive ones about blacks. Teaching children about Hanukkah, rather than the beliefs that actually sustained Jews on their sometimes tragic and tumultuous historical journey, inculcates negative lessons about Christianity, not positive ones about Judaism.<\/strong><\/p>\n
VDare<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2005 winner, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christmas, Jews, De-Assimilation and Decline\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a> by Steve Sailer, is much more specific. Sailer is a writer who has, in the past, shown enthusiasm for Eugenics and believes black people to be inferior. In a 2005 article for Vdare called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Racial Reality and the New Orleans Nightmare,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a> he wrote of black people, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The plain fact is that they tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus they need stricter moral guidance from society.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In his competition-winning article about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sailer complains that, although Jews wrote many of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most popular Christmas songs, those songs were secular, and these days, they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even doing that, because rather than being grateful for the piles of money they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been able to make off of Christianity, all they want to do is destroy the Christian tradition of Christmas.<\/p>\n
With just a little research, it becomes very clear that the roots of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are deeply imbedded in the soil of racial hatred and religious bigotry. The people responsible for pointing out this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and making the most noise about it in the 1990s were white supremacists and anti-Semites.<\/p>\n
By the middle of the past decade, the cry of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war\u00e2\u20ac\u009d had been picked up by media figures. TV and radio personality John Gibson published a book in 2005 called The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than you Thought<\/em>. Gibson, a former Fox News anchor, relates several anecdotes that involve towns deciding to call their Christmas parades \u00e2\u20ac\u0153holiday parades\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or including symbols of other religions in their holiday displays. He sees a widespread conspiracy at work which is not only bent on removing any Christian significance from Christianity, but which is part of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153revolution against Christianity<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Behind this conspiracy, he claims, are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He includes in this cabal civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union — and he even includes Christian churches<\/em> that try to be inclusive, calling them \u00e2\u20ac\u0153institutional backers of the war on Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153These are the churches that marry gays and turn their backs on preborn babies.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He claims that the members of these churches \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vote for John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Barney Frank.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the score so far. Those who say there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d blame it on a conspiracy to eradicate Christianity that is the work of communists, the UN, non-caucasian people and immigrants, Jews, secular humanists, the ACLU, anyone who supports gay rights or a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right to choose, and any Christians who vote for Democrats.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the loudest voice calling to let slip the dogs of Christmas war is Fox News personality Bill O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly. Just in case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not familiar with O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the guy who was sued for sexual harassment in 2004 by Andrea Mackris, an associate producer on his Fox News show The O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly Factor<\/em>. According to court documents<\/a>, Mackris was subjected to repeated verbal harassment by O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly, who commonly peppered their conversations with lewd references to the size of his penis, the women who were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amazed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by it, his fondness for phone sex, vibrators and explicit sexual fantasies about what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to do to Mackris in the shower with a loofa. He masturbated and climaxed during more than one telephone conversation with her, and while having dinner with Mackris and her friend, he repeatedly propositioned them both and talked about an upcoming trip to Italy to meet the pope, during which his pregnant wife would be staying home with his daughter. He then \u00e2\u20ac\u0153implied he was looking forward to some extra-marital dalliances with the ‘hot’ Italian women.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d All of this was done against Mackris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s will and despite her repeated appeals to him to stop. In 2004, when Mackris pointed out that O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly had engaged in similarly inappropriate behavior with other women working on his show and warned him to be more cautious before one of them told someone, he said words to this effect:<\/p>\n
If any woman ever breathed a word, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make her pay so dearly that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll wish she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never been born. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life and make her so miserable that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be destroyed. And besides, she wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to afford the lawyers I can or endure it financially as long as I can. And nobody would believe her, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be her word against mine and who would they believe? Me or some unstable woman making crazy accusations. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d see her as some psycho, someone unstable. Besides, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never make the mistake of picking unstable crazy girls like that.<\/strong><\/p>\n
He further pointed out that any woman who blew the whistle on his behavior would have more to contend with than O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly alone.<\/p>\n
If you cross Fox News Channel, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just me, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s [Fox News president] Roger Ailes who will go after you. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m the street guy out front making noise about the issues, but Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day, BAM! The person gets what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to get a knock on his door and his life as he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.<\/strong><\/p>\n
O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly never denied any of Mackris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claims, but filed a countersuit. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum and both suits were dropped.<\/p>\n
But that was more than six years ago. Today, Bill O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly is concerned about what he sees as an attack on Christians and Christianity, because obviously, following the teachings of Jesus Christ is a priority in O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life. On November 28, 2005, O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly said on his Fox News show<\/a>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He hammers this subject relentlessly, claiming that it’s all part of “a very secret plan<\/a>” that is designed to “diminish Christian philosophy in the USA.” Every year, O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly sounds off about stores and companies that choose to use the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d rather than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153merry Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in their marketing campaigns, and every year, the complaints get angrier, louder and wilder. According to O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly<\/a>, saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will lead to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and will wipe Christianity off the map in America.<\/p>\n
More and more media figures — Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage — have jumped on the “Christmas war” wagon. But all of this anger and shouting is not confined to the media. In 2002, the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization of Christian activist lawyers co-founded by James Dobson, began organizing hundreds of lawyers all over the country to pounce on anything they perceived as a threat to Christmas by filing lawsuits. A number of other Christian activist organizations do the same thing every year, filling the courts with lawsuits defending the most popular and beloved holiday in America from … whatever. Senior legal council for the Alliance Defense Fund, Mike Johnson, once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It’s a sad day in America when you have to retain a lawyer to wish someone a merry Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just one problem with that: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never happened. No one has ever<\/em> had to seek legal representation for wishing someone \u00e2\u20ac\u0153merry Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remark is based entirely on fantasy. In fact, non<\/em>e of the things these people are so wildly upset about are happening! No one<\/em> is trying to destroy Christmas. It remains the most popular holiday in America. Stores and businesses that use the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d do so because they know their customers include not only people who engage in the Christian celebration of Christmas but those who celebrate the other holidays during this season, and those who are not religious at all. The last people on the planet who would want to destroy Christmas are those who benefit most<\/em> from it — department stores, toy stores, retail chains of all kinds. These businesses depend<\/em> on Christmas! Why would they want to do anything to alter the holiday in any way? All they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing is being inclusive, trying to bring in more people. American businesses have no interest in banishing Christianity, only in beefing up their profits. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing that by broadening their appeal with more nonspecific acknowledgments of the season, like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy holidays\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s greetings.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d If you think business in America is devoted to the Christian religion — or any religion at all — you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been paying attention. Business worships only the dollar and always has.<\/p>\n
The anecdotes frequently cited by people like John Gibson in his 2005 book are part of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those upset about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — who are not<\/em> the majority of Americans, by the way — have become so loud and so angry that businesses and other organizations have become over<\/em>-sensitive to the possibility of offending people at Christmas time, so they sometimes go too far in their efforts to be inclusive by calling Christmas trees \u00e2\u20ac\u0153holiday trees\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or Christmas parades \u00e2\u20ac\u0153holiday parades.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Then the Christmas warriors point to those things as examples of an evil conspiracy to wipe the baby Jesus out of the holiday — a conspiracy that does not exist.<\/p>\n
There is no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Right now, in 2010, Americans are just as free to celebrate the religious holidays that come at this time of year as they ever have been, all of it fully supported by the United States Supreme Court. Lynch v. Donnelly, a 1984 Supreme Court ruling, determined that nativity scenes are allowed on public property along with the three wise men, the Christmas star, Christmas trees, snowmen, candy canes — there is no prohibition against Christianity. Government-sponsored displays must include representations of other religions and secular symbols of holiday celebration as well because the government is constitutionally prohibited from recognizing a single religion above all others. This is, as they say, the American way. We are a nation of people of all faiths and no faith. In public schools, students are allowed to hand out religious-themed holiday cards and literature. And if they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/em> allowed to do that, guess who steps in to represent them and defend their rights? That evil organization that so many believe to be a big player in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the ACLU. Sometimes, the anger expressed by so many people about the nonexistent \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d makes school administrators and others too<\/em> cautious, occasionally to the point of stepping on people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights. In 2003, a group of students at Westfield High School in Massachusetts were suspended for handing out candy canes that had Christian messages attached to them. The ACLU intervened on their behalf, filed an amicus brief and succeeded in having the suspensions revoked. But an article by Jerry Falwell<\/a> on the far-right website Newsmax.com states:<\/p>\n
The fact is, students have the right to free speech in the form of verbal or written expression during non-instructional class time. And yes, students have just as much right to speak on religious topics as they do on secular topics — no matter what the ACLU might propagate.<\/strong><\/p>\n
The ACLU propagates no such thing<\/em>. The ACLU has no<\/em> conflict with students, or anyone else, expressing their religious beliefs — it fights to support<\/em> that right! Anyone who tells you the ACLU is anti-Christian is either misinformed or is deliberately trying to misinform you<\/em>. That accusation is repeated so often that I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fair to say it is a blatant, intentional lie<\/em>. And the idea that the ACLU is one of the organizations waging a war on Christmas is ludicrous<\/em>! In 2002, the ACLU filed a brief supporting the right of the Church of the Good News to run ads criticizing the secularization of Christmas and promoting Christianity as the “one true religion” when the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority refused to post the paid advertisements and declined to sell any more ad space to the church. I ask you — why would an organization that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to abolish the Christian celebration of Christmas do that<\/em>?<\/p>\n
The organization vigorously defends the religious rights of Christians and people of all faiths in America. Here are a few examples of that <\/a>from the year 2005 alone:<\/p>\n
Louisiana: When Mormon prison inmate Norman Sanders was not allowed access to Mormon religious texts and services, the ACLU sued the Department of Corrections on his behalf.<\/p>\n
New Jersey: When second-grade student Olivia Turton was prohibited from singing the song \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Awesome God\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in a volunteer after-school talent show, the ACLU filed a motion to submit a friend-of-the-court brief on her behalf.<\/p>\n
Oregon: When students at a Seventh-day Adventist school made it to the state basketball tournament and were going to be forced to play tournament games on Saturday, their sabbath, the ACLU filed suit against the Oregon School Activities Association on their behalf<\/p>\n
Michigan: Joseph Hanas, a Catholic, was ordered by the court to go through a drug rehabilitation program run by a Pentecostal group that required him to read the bible seven hours a day, declare his salvation at the altar, and be tested on Pentecostal principles. The group confiscated Hanas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rosary and told him Catholicism was evil. When Hanas refused to complete the program and was criminally punished, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf.<\/p>\n
That last example points out a very important fact — sometimes America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freedom of religion has to be defended against Christians<\/em>. That does not mean the ACLU is anti-Christian, it means the ACLU is opposed to any<\/em> infringement of an American\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freedom of religion, including infringement being committed by Christians.<\/p>\n
Just in case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re thinking that the United States is a Christian nation and everyone should respect, if not personally observe, Christian holidays, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to point out one little problem with that: The United States is not<\/em> a Christian nation and never was. The majority of Americans are Christian, there is no doubt about that. But that means this is a nation of Christians, not<\/em> a Christian nation — there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a big difference. Iran, for example, is a Muslim nation because there is no line drawn between the government of Iran and the Muslim religion — that country is governed by religion. The United States government has no religion. It recognizes no religion but protects the rights of all<\/em> religions. Our founders were brilliant men. They did not approach the establishment of this nation lightly. Had they intended to establish a Christian nation, it would be abysmally negligent of them not to include that in the United States Constitution. It would be more than negligent — it would be absurd<\/em>. They had no such intention. The Constitution does not mention the words “god” or “Jesus Christ” and makes no reference to Christianity or the bible or the ten commandments. The only reference to religion in the Constitution specifies no particular religion; it simply bars the government from enforcing or prohibiting the practice of any religion.<\/p>\n
The Constitution neither requires nor prohibits any particular celebration of Christmas. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even mention<\/em> Christmas. In 1789, the first Christmas under the United States Constitution, Congress was in session on December 25. Christmas did not become a federal holiday until 1870.<\/p>\n
There was only one successful \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history. It was a war fought by a group of people who were so offended by the celebration of Christmas that they banned it by law and fined anyone who was found engaging in any kind of recognition of the holiday. For 22 years, this group succeeded in abolishing Christmas. This, by the way, was a group of Christians<\/em>. Puritans in Massachusetts banned Christmas from 1659 to 1681 because they found no biblical support for the holiday, strongly disapproved of its pagan origins and did not like the raucous partying that took place every Christmas. The law stated that anyone found \u00e2\u20ac\u0153observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting or any other way any such days as Christmas day, shall pay for every such offense five shillings.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d From Andrew Santella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Slate<\/em> article, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The War on Christmas, the Prequel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a>:<\/p>\n
After the English Restoration government reclaimed control of Massachusetts from the Puritans in the 1680s, one of the first acts of the newly appointed royal governor of the colony was to sponsor and attend Christmas religious services. Perhaps fearing a militant Puritan backlash, for the 1686 services he was flanked by redcoats. The Puritan disdain for the holiday endured: As late as 1869, public-school kids in Boston could be expelled for skipping class on Christmas Day.<\/strong><\/p>\n
While the 17th-century Quakers did not resort to legislation, they rejected Christmas and refused to do anything to celebrate the holiday. That continued into the early 19th century, when all but a few Pennsylvanians still ignored the holiday.<\/p>\n
From Santella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article:<\/p>\n
Observance of Christmas, or the lack thereof, was one way to differentiate among the Christian sects of Colonial and 19th-century America. Anglicans, Moravians, Dutch Reformed, and Lutherans, to name just a few, did; Quakers, Puritans, Separatists, Baptists, and some Presbyterians did not. An 1855 New York Times <\/em>report on Christmas services in the city noted that Baptist and Methodist churches were closed because they “do not accept the day as a holy one,” while Episcopal and Catholic churches were open and “decked with evergreens.”<\/strong><\/p>\n
We have gone from a time in our past when many Christians rejected Christmas, even to the point of making the celebration illegal, to a time when Christians are angry because people aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t uttering the correct greeting at Christmas time. But those Christians are angry for no reason other than the fact that some people in the media have told them they should<\/em> be angry.<\/p>\n
The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war on Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a myth. No one is trying to abolish the Christian celebration of Christmas. Your holiday is safe. The fact is, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not your<\/em> holiday — you simply celebrate it for your own religious reasons. Like most Christian holidays, Christmas grew from pagan roots<\/a>. Long before anyone ever heard the name “Jesus Christ,” this part of the year has been a time of celebration around the world. The Norse celebrated Yule from the winter solstice through the month of January. Their celebration included the burning of a large log; the celebration lasted as long as that log was burning. Germany honored the pagan god Odin at this time of year. They feared Odin because he was said to fly through the air at night, watching everyone, and he would determine who was naughty and who was nice, then reward the nice and punish the naughty. He was believed to lead a giant Yule hunting party through the sky, riding his flying horse, Sleipnir. The mythology of Santa Claus owes a great deal to Odin. According to Phyllis Siefker, author of Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men: The Origins and Evolution of St. Nicholas<\/em>, children would set out their boots filled with straw, carrots or sugar for Sleipnir to eat when he came by. Odin would reward the children for feeding his horse by leaving them candy and gifts. Sound familiar? In the winter, Romans honored Saturn, the god of agriculture, with an enormous hedonistic blowout of a party that included a bounty of food and drink. The social order was turned upside down during this festival — slaves became masters for a month, and peasants were given rule of the city. The upper classes celebrated the birth of the god Mithra, who was believed to have born of a rock.<\/p>\n