The Myth of The War Against Christmas

Chewy

In 1959, the recently formed John Birch Society issued an urgent alert: Christmas was under attack. In a JBS pamphlet titled "There Goes Christmas?!" a writer named Hubert Kregeloh warned, "One 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." The central front in this perfidious assault was American department stores, where the "Godless UN" was scheming to replace religious decorations with internationalist celebrations of universal brotherhood.

"The UN fanatics launched their assault on Christmas in 1958, but too late to get very far before the holy day was at hand," the pamphlet explained. "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."

Last December...Fox News' Bill O'Reilly began running a regular segment called "Christmas Under Siege." "All over the country, Christmas is taking flak," O'Reilly declared on Dec. 7. "In Denver this past weekend, no religious floats were permitted in the holiday parade there. In New York City, Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg unveiled the 'holiday tree,' and no Christian Christmas symbols are allowed in the public schools. Federated Department Stores -- that's Macy's -- have done away with the Christmas greeting 'Merry Christmas.'" Instead, Macy's was using the malign phrase "Happy Holidays." Noting this, Pat Buchanan wrote, "What we are witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity."

This year the war on Christmas canard has come early...In October, Fox News anchor John Gibson published a book titled "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought," which envisions a vast conspiracy with tentacles reaching into many aspects of American life. "The plot to ban Christmas itself is anything but secret," writes Gibson. "It is embedded in the secular 'Humanist Manifesto'

Last week, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights launched a short-lived boycott of Wal-Mart, charging the megastore with "insulting Christians by effectively banning Christmas." The American Family Association called for a Thanksgiving-weekend boycott of Target because of the chain's purported refusal to use the phrase "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. (Target denies having such a policy.) A few days later, Jerry Falwell announced he was joining with the Christian right legal group Liberty Counsel's "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," which intends to sue officials who try to curb religious Christmas celebrations in schools or other public places.

Despite Johnson's lamentations, one can in fact offer Christmas greetings without legal counsel...Students are allowed to distribute religious holiday cards and literature in school. If the administration tries to stop them, the ACLU will step in to defend the students' free-speech rights, as they did in 2003 when teenagers in Massachusetts were suspended for passing out candy canes with Christian messages.

In fact, there is no war on Christmas. What there is, rather, is a burgeoning myth of a war on Christmas, assembled out of old reactionary tropes, urban legends, exaggerated anecdotes and increasingly organized hostility to the American Civil Liberties Union. It's a myth that can be self-fulfilling, as school board members and local politicians believe the false conservative claim that they can't celebrate Christmas without getting sued by the ACLU and thus jettison beloved traditions, enraging citizens and perpetuating a potent culture-war meme. This in turn furthers the myth of an anti-Christmas conspiracy.

"You have a dynamic here, where you have the Christian right hysterically overrepresenting the problem, and then anecdotally you have some towns where lawyers restrict any kind of display or representation of religion, which is equally absurd," says Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates and one of the foremost experts on the religious right. "It's a closed loop. In that dynamic, neither the secular humanists or the ACLU are playing a role."

Like all conspiracy theories, there are a few grains of truth at the center of it -- some schools, in an overzealous attempt to promote inclusiveness, have taken silly steps like renaming their Christmas trees "friendship trees." Some have indeed infringed on religious students' First Amendment rights.

Claims that Wal-Mart, of all places, is trying to ban Christmas resonate with some segments of the right because they're part of a larger, older story line about a giant, diabolical plot to rob God-fearing Americans of their traditions and erode their very identity.

As the Web site News Hounds pointed out last year, Henry Ford was sounding the alarm about the war on Christmas in his notorious 1921 tract "The International Jew." "The whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and other Christian festivals, and their opposition to certain patriotic songs, shows the venom and directness of [their] attack," Ford wrote.

In order to prove this conspiracy, Gibson, O'Reilly and others like them gather anecdotes from around the country of officials putting petty restrictions on the speech of aggrieved Christians. Some of these are exaggerated, some legitimate, but none support their paranoid claims of a vast secular-humanist conspiracy.

Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center...is one of the heroes of Gibson's book. According to Haynes, though, there is no war on Christmas. "I certainly wouldn't put it that way," he says. "The big picture is that there's more religion now in public schools than ever in modern history. There's no question about that. But it's not there in terms of the government imposing religion or sponsoring it, and that bothers some people on the right. They miss the good old days when public schools were semi-established Protestant schools."

In the last two decades, says Haynes, "religion has come into the public schools in all kinds of ways ... many schools now understand that students have religious liberty rights in a public school, so you can go to many public schools today and kids will be giving each other religious literature, they will be sharing their faith. You go to most public schools now and see kids praying around the flagpole before school."

Credit: Salon.com

Comments?

AudioSavior

I am not even really a Christian but I am thinking of becoming one just so I can join the crusade for the right to celibate and express Christmas where ever the fuck I want to.

Disco Raheem

Universal brotherhood? Those sick, Godless pinko's.

Miakal

hahahha that's pretty much what I was going to say.

I think it's retarded when people get in a tiffy over having Christmas being said at Walmart or whatever. It's a private operation and they can say whatever they want. Plus, if you are coming in during the holiday season there's a pretty good chance you are doing Christmas shopping.

However, the Government cannot legally put up Christmas decorations and the like.

Dakstang

WC's Resident Redneck

I have to say that it is pretty silly when people get upset over cashiers not saying Merry Chistmas. What if the person is Jewish?

Happy Holidays is fine with me. But down here in the Bible belt everyone is pretty much of Christian belief whether they regularly go to Church or not so it is not a big deal here. Merry Christmas is the norm.

Papa Shango

it saddens me.. Santa has been banned from the Birmingham Bullring, certain songs have been removed from nativity plays and christmas concerts because it may offend those not of our persuasion.

I thought the idea of a multi cultural society was all races and cultures tolerating each others beliefs.. that isnt happening here. We have to water down our traditions and customs while at the same time watching extensive coverage of the Diwali Festival of Light and the Ramadan celebrations on the TV.

I would like to go over to india or an arab nation and tell them that their customs offend me.. do you think they would stop doing it? I dont fucking think so.

The western world is getting so fucking PC... PC to the point that our very own traditions are being watered down in favour of others.

Like i said before, this isnt a multi cultural society... its an OTHER cultural society

Miakal

But do you think your city and govenment should be setting up things to promote Jesus or any other religion? Clearly, you can't.

Dakstang

WC's Resident Redneck

If they allow representations of other religions to be displayed (which has happened in the U.S. on numerous occasions) and not let them set up a Manger scene to represent Christianity do you think that is wrong? Surely you must.

Miakal

I do think it's wrong, very wrong. But there's no denying that that's the minority compared to all the Christian BS you see.

The Dude

Then you say Happy Channukah. It's that simple.

When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fullfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and be taken as prisoners to all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
...At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
Luke 21:20-28