An Update from the "war on Christmas"

DEC. 10, 2005--Before you read this posting, read this disclaimer: I am not a Christian. I have tried batting from both sides of the plate in that department: I have been both a Protestant and a Catholic during my life. I have problems with both, and haven't been anywhere near a church in more than 20 years. Now, read on.

The "culture wars" in America have a new battlefield on which the two sides now slug it out every year starting right after Halloween.

The two sides, parsing our fuzzy notions of "the left" and "the right" these days, are those who favor a public secularism resembling that of Europe, and those who wish to conserve America's Judeo-Christian traditions.

The battlefield is, of course, Christmas. Some on the right are claiming there is an out-and-out conspiracy to remove Christmas from public view and replace it with "holiday," e.g. people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Christmas trees are being renamed "Holiday trees," and so forth. Right here in my home town of Chula Vista, California, the annual Yuletide Parade is now called "The Starlight Parade" (apparently even the word "yule" is too religious for some people.) Snowmen and candy canes are allowed in these "Holiday" parades, but Santa Claus is being increasingly banned. (And it's not just here in California, of course. A few years ago I read where a small town in Maryland caved in to the demands of the local atheist and banned Santa Claus from its annual parade. In response, about 300 guys showed up at the parade in Santa suits.)

Fox News' John Gibson has written a book about all of this, The War on Christmas. Gibson certainly believes that secularists have mounted a premeditated attack on religious tradition, deliberately attempting to remove the essence of Christmas from the Christmas season, to purge the season of any notion or acknowledgement of a supreme being. And the secularists have shot back in response to claims such as Gibson's, claiming there's no such thing as a war on Christmas. Tax-subsidized institutions should not endorse any one religion, and the separation of church and state demands that nativity scenes not be permitted at city hall, nor holiday displays and programs that center around baby Jesus be allowed in public schools or in any other place that receives tax money.

The whole idea of a war on Christmas, they claim, is just another right-wing bugbear; they're only defending the constitution.

And then, under their breath, they'll add, "From all those red-state troglodytes who want to turn this country into a theocracy."

A generation ago the left was raging impotently over America's choice of Ronald Reagan for president over the limpid Jimmy Carter, and screamed itself hoarse trying to sell the idea that Reagan wanted to start a nuclear war, which he never wanted and never did.

In those days the catchphrase was "nuclear war." These days, the left's favorite word has become "theocracy." The evil right, we keep hearing, is scheming to turn America into a "theocracy," just as surely as Reagan wanted to mash on that nuclear button. And never mind the fact that George W. Bush, even if he were a confirmed antidisestablishmentarian, (look it up) is a lame-duck president scheduled to leave office in January, 2009. Man the secular parapets: the theocrats are at the gates.

Theocrats at the gates? Because some store clerk says "Merry Christmas" to a shopper?

I was in the fourth grade, at Castle Park Elementary School right here in Chula Vista, at Christmas of 1963. President John F. Kennedy had been dead for a month, killed by an assassin. A lot of people weren't feeling very festive that holiday season. But we kids were rehearsed and gotten up for a Christmas pageant at our (public) school nonetheless. And that's what it was called, by the way: a Christmas pageant, not a "winter festival." We did a choral reading from the second chapter of Luke. I kid you not: the second chapter of the Book of Luke, in the New Testament. Nobody filed a lawsuit, nobody screamed about "theocracy," and everyone went quietly home to bed afterwards. Now, if a public school could have a Christmas pageant during the Kennedy era without putting America in peril of being taken over by Christian ayatollahs, why is uttering "Merry Christmas" such a danger now? Surely even those who have hatred for George W. Bush engraved upon their livers wouldn't credit him with a charisma approaching JFK's. And I'm not advocating readings from Luke in today's public schools, either. I'm just saying that, if such a thing didn't destroy the republic in the JFK era, it probably wouldn't now.

Nevertheless, pundits will assure you that insisting Wal-Mart employees say "Happy Holidays" to customers instead of "Merry Christmas," is to truly and courageously protect the American way, not to mention the sensitive toes of all those non-Christians out there. Better to deny a million shoppers a cheery "Merry Christmas" than make one whiny atheist feel "excluded." (Complaints about Santas and creches don't usually come from Jews, Muslims or other believers. They usually come from atheists, by way of whatever lawyer the atheist is paying.)

Of course these are the same people who will also try to tell you there's no such thing as political correctness. PC, they'll tell you with earnest, wide-open eyes, is just another "right-wing bugbear." It doesn't exist.

Uh-huh. And I root for the Stanford Cardinals in college football, too.

In the midst of all this fuss n' feathers, I went to the post office this morning. Today is Saturday, and it's the second week of December: there were many people lined up waiting for the doors to open so they could mail or pick up packages. When the doors finally did open, promptly at 9 a.m., we all filed in.

I looked around and noticed that there were holiday decorations hung in the post office lobby. No Santas or creches, though, just good old inoffensive fake holly and ivy. A snowman here, a candy cane there.

But wait: one of the postal employees had obviously brought in her own boom-box. It stood on the counter beside her station, and from it, a female singer was belting out O Come, All Ye Faithful. In the post office, a government building! Shocking, just shocking.

But I looked around to see if anyone in line were getting ready to protest. No one was. Everyone continued to quietly wait their turn at the window. "Well, just wait," I thought. "Later today some atheist will come in here for a book of stamps, and the next thing you know, the postmaster will get a threatening letter from the ACLU." But it didn't seem pending at that moment. Everyone continued to wait on line. Some hummed along.

Eventually I got to the window. I was looking for some returned mail. I was told to go stand in another line, one for pick-ups that didn't involve cash. So I went and stood over the by the door, where the no-cash people were queuing.

The crowd in the lobby grew, and the postal workers decided it was time to open one more window. I watched as an older postal employee came out to the front lobby with some mail in his hands and removed the cover from the postal scale.

"I'm going to open another window," he announced to the crowd. "But I'm going to sing to you first." With that, he launched into a chorus of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." In the post office.

No one protested. A few people actually applauded.

With that, and with fond, loving memories of the Christmas holidays I remember from childhood and youth, including those spent right here in Chula Vista, I wish one and all...Season's Greetings.