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Posted on 11/30/2005 2:46:46 PM PST by pissant
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The all-inclusive "Happy Holidays" greeting has become an annual December puzzler for towns, public schools, and businesses: How do we respect the holiday traditions of one group of citizens without causing detriment to another? While Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and in some years Ramadan and Diwali, share the same season, last year's polls show around 96 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas.
For a pluralistic nation that prides itself upon embracing both freedom of expression and the separation of church and state, the widespread public celebration of Christmas poses a unique quandary. Guiding public displays of Christmas cheer are a patchwork of inconsistent, local-level policies - the perfect conditions under which litigation emerges.
Successive years of legal action by civil libertarians have effectively curtailed the public promotion of all things "Christmas," giving rise to more politically correct - and judiciously safe - "Holiday" observances. In doing so, public officials and retailers alike have nurtured a well-founded hypersensitivity to the opinions of a minority group.
But just when the scales of political correctness seem to be gaining balance, along comes a new backlash. This year, it's the majority group of Christmas adherents who are alleging a persecution of beliefs.
After nearly two decades of watching community Christmas parades slowly evolve into Holiday parades, school Christmas vacation into winter break, and town hall crèches into snowmen, Christmas observers are revolting.
Among the recent reactionary signs:
• More than 800 lawyers are enrolled for the third year of The Alliance Defense Fund's Christmas Project initiative, which supplies legal aid to towns and schools nationwide that face challenges to their traditional Christmas celebrations. Last year, the initiative successfully defended Christmas displays on public property by the town of Cranston, R.I., and the school district of Bossier Parrish, La.
• During a Nov. 9 broadcast, FOX news commentator Bill O'Reilly launched the first volley in an all-out television-based offensive against retailers which shun "Merry Christmas" for "Happy Holidays," going so far as to list specific offending merchants that should be boycotted.
• After threatening a boycott of Wal-Mart stores in early November, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights successfully won concessions from the retail chain after an employee offered up his own explanation to a customer via e-mail for the store's policy of wishing customers "Happy Holidays" in lieu of "Merry Christmas." Wal-Mart stood by its all-inclusive "Happy Holidays" greeting, but did publicly apologize and promptly fired the offending employee.
• The Rev. Jerry Falwell and the conservative Liberty Counsel have launched a "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign." Armed with 750 lawyers, the group promises to "reclaim Christmas" by filing suit against anyone who, in their view, limits the public celebration of Christmas. Reverend Falwell recently publically criticized the city of Boston for a reference on its website to the annual lighting of its "Holiday Tree."
• The conservative 150,000 member American Family Association has called for a boycott of Target stores for not utilizing the specific phrase "Merry Christmas" in their holiday advertising.
• A California organization called "The Committee to Save Merry Christmas" has garnered national media coverage with a grass-roots campaign to boycott Sears and Federated Department Stores Inc. for changing their advertising from "Merry Christmas" to "Season's Greetings."
The fundamental message of today's Christmas crusaders is not new; merely the societal context has changed. In the early 1950s, groups of clergy first began organizing against what they considered the disturbing commercialization and secularization of Christmas. While their efforts were largely confined to using the power of the pulpit, today's pleas are most likely to leverage the power of the judiciary and the court of public opinion.
In the end, the balance between sensitivity and celebration may always be elusive. A CNN/USA Today/Gallop poll conducted last year showed that Americans were evenly split on whether the public shift from "Christmas" to "Holidays" was a change for the better.
Such societal ambivalence exemplifies how the masquerading of traditionally held beliefs with insincere modern sensitivity ultimately serves no one well. When towns hold "Community Tree" lightings, do we all - majority and minority alike - not understand on a deeper level that it is really an old-fashioned "Christmas Tree" lighting redefined for the modern, politically correct era? Is it any big secret that the $435 billion dollar "Holiday shopping" bonanza currently under way is comprised primarily of "Christmas" gift buying? And when school children go on vacation for "winter break," do we not accept that it will always occur during Christmas week?
By softening the "Christmas" connection simply for December etiquette, we neither fully show sensitivity toward the views of the minority nor genuinely celebrate the traditions of the majority. We are left then with a sanitized holiday season, fraught with fears of politically incorrect missteps. Then, no one has a truly happy holiday of any sort.
Re your post #46, that hits the old nail right on the head. Why the retailers can't see that is a mystery to me.
As a non-Christian, why would I be offended at being wished a Merry Christmas? Since when did peace, joy and love become offensive?
I have no problem with a Christmas tree and a Nativity scene on the town square, paid for with tax money. And even if I weren't OK with it, my only recourse would be to cast my one vote against it or any candidate that supported it.
Again, the Left is able to use the merest threat of a lawsuit to gain what they could never win at the polls.
Democracy and majority rule are rapidly becoming the tyrrany of the minority.
I love Christmastime. And so do most Americans. As I've said before, in America you can choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the secular holiday of the same name that grew up around it, both, or neither.
Whatever name you put on the midwinter festival of light, rebirth and joy, it's still a part of our culture, more ancient than Christianity and so deeply rooted that even the medieval Christian church couldn't stamp it out.
Merry Christmas!
I can't blame you for forgetting.
It's been one bogus cause and crusade championed by the liberal media -- Cindy Sheehan, Ward Churchill, Judith Miller, etc., etc., etc. -- liberal icons revisited that make you wonder whatever made them celebrated causes of the day, other than a meaningless exercise of mass media's power to manipulate and control.
2005 is the year the music died for the liberal (mainstream) media. One can only cry "Wolf," too many times before people will no longer respond to their manipulations and deceptions -- just to flaunt their arrogance. Even those who wanted to believe in them have deserted them now -- realizing they are rotten to the core, and have to die, and maybe be resurrected in a better life.
But they were hellbent to destroy their credibility because they were in this destruct mode and couldn't help themselves. They unleashed the power of hate and hysteria -- thinking that they could control and direct it against those they wanted to -- but it always comes home to roost.
"Why avoid using 'Merry Christmas'?"
Because it's got that awful "C" word.
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This is all true. And is why so many elements of the American/Christian celebration of Christ's birth do, in fact, come from roots in pagan worship. I think the mentality was basically, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Having said that, the identifying theme of Christmas, to the majority of Americans/Christians, is that of Christ's birth, not pagan rituals. And even that is different from home to home, each family carrying on their own, special, traditions revolving around His birth.
I didn't think there was from your post.
I'm not beating up on you, but since you volunteered the info that you worked marketing for a retailer, - tag, you're it!
We've been going down this road of taking Christmas out of the season for awhile. I honestly didn't know if it was because of fear of lawsuits or what. I thought (and still think) that if your target market is 96% of something, well, it seems like a no brainer to me.
What are you talking about, even small stores can afford to change the banner from Halloween to New year without raising price.
So either your store is doing really bad or you just want to cut cost, without lowering the price.
"Observations of Hanuka and Kwanza fall into the same cateogry as speaking Spanish -- the hallmark of people who are disrepectful of the United States and everything it has give them, which is everything."
Second time I'm asking this question: Why is observing a Jewish feast disrespectful of the United States?
"When did celebrating a Jewish Holiday become disrespectful of America?"
Notice that he ain't answering the question?
I wouldn't be offended either but then I have no idea what
Happy Kwanzaa means. To be quite honest,I don't have any wish to know.
Merry Christmas
Kwanzaa is a recent creation.
It is not a holy day (holiday). Holy days are days of special significance to various religions.
Bill O'Reilly is really doing a good job on this!
**• The conservative 150,000 member American Family Association has called for a boycott of Target stores for not utilizing the specific phrase "Merry Christmas" in their holiday advertising.**
I hope Target really get slammed this year.
Here is an idea. If anybody(who looks non-muslim, non buddhist, etc) wishes you 'Happy Holidays', immediately wish him or her back 'and Merry Christmas to you too !
Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights celebrated by lighting candles and having fireworks displays. It celebrates the triumph of good over evil ( ancient Hindu mythology). I hear in India its the big big holiday/festive/sales season, same as Christmas here.
Not to forget every Friday afternoon.
Getting rid of Christmas gets rid of the nativity. And you can not have abortion, samesex marriage in the face of the birth of Jesus(God in the womb one would think that would be considered sacred)and having a mother and father. What I would like to ask the muslims is they have a very high regard for Mary,and Jesus as well, they just think nobody would dare come out against them or their faith OR ELSE!
As I have said time and time again, CHRISTIANS SAVE YOUR MONEY AND SHOP AFTER CHRISTMAS.
For some christians saying Merry Christmas is about the hope of Jesus coming into the hearts and souls of the entire world. Hoping the world can be filled more with Gods love instead of what we perceive as love. Example loving a child no matter what the situation. The Catholic church has come out and said it would take any child whose mother is considering abortion. Christmas and the gretting is all about HOPE.
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