It’s getting close to Christmas so it must be time for the war against Christmas by certain extreme secularists. There are the usual demands to banish the word Christmas in favor of “Holidays” (but remember Holidays is just a mispronunciation of Holy days). There is the utterly silly banishment of the colors red and green in certain public schools. And even further, are the outright insulting attacks on both believers and Christmas traditions. Here are just two of the insulting ones:
1. SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the three wise men are being crowded out by atheists. Most of the Christmas nativity scenes that churches had placed in a Santa Monica coastal park for decades have been displaced by non-religious displays….One display reads: “Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies. — Thomas Jefferson.” And another display with photographs depicting King Neptune, Jesus Christ, Santa Claus and Satan reads, “Million Americans know MYTHS when they see them. What myths do you see?….[1]
2. People stopped to stare and voiced their disapproval about the strange red-coated skeleton that appeared on the courthouse grounds in Leesburg over the weekend….The crucified Santa had drawn the immediate attention of community residents, resulting in a barrage of complaints to county officials, according to Julie Withrow, assistant to the county administrator…..[One woman said], How offensive to children, especially, to see a beloved symbol of the holidays crucified!” [2]
OK, here’s your disclaimer – They have a right to free speech.
That said, the extremists who do things like this are rude, insensitive, discourteous, and ill-mannered and unneighborly. Using people’s religious holidays to ridicule them is lacks class.
Grouping Jesus with Neptune and Satan and calling him a myth (even considered only from his human nature, he changed world history) is ignorant, ungracious, and borders on bigotry. As for the Jefferson quote, it is also and simply ignorant. Any trip to the Jefferson memorial will show how out of context their little pull quote is. Jefferson had high regard for the necessity of religion in society and frequently references God whom he acknowledges to exist. He wouldn’t appreciate their little stunt. And while Santa isn’t a religious symbol per se, lots of kids have a place in their heart for him, and the inconsiderate, no-class protestor ought to be ashamed of himself. Nobody likes ugly or mean.
Note too that Chanukah was not targeted. There are no cries to rename the Menorah a “Holiday Candelabra” and no one hangs skeletons in Jewish prayer shawls from the Menorah. And imagine the uproar if, during Muslim holy days, the Prophet Muhammad were hung in effigy anywhere, let alone the courthouse lawn. I can assure you, no county official would even allow such things to see the light of day. In the end this hatred is about Christ, public enemy number one, to the militants who do such indecent things.
I wonder how the secular extremists who do such things would react if the tables were turned? What if, on Earth Day, a high holy day for most of them, they were to observe roving bands of “Christians” descend on their festival on the Mall and start burning leaves? What if all throughout the country, by the thousands, we staged a counter-demonstration by cutting down trees just for the heck of it, merely to signal our dis-satisfaction at their celebration? What if, while the thousands of trees were being felled, other on-lookers shook signs that read, “Take that you tree-huggers!” or “Earth-day is a pagan myth,” or “CO2, We’re for you.” At what if at the end of the demonstration the signs and the felled trees were burned? What if thousands of believers, just to counter demonstrate, turned on every light in their house, for six hours and idled their cars in their driveway, just for the heck of it? What if all this was done on earth-day for the sheer purpose of counter-demonstrating in the most offensive ways possible.
How do you suppose the devotees would feel on that day? How would the media cover it? Would “free speech” in America be celebrated? Would the media indicate that some people obviously have legitimate grievances against the declaration of a certain day as “Earth Day” and that we must understand their concerns? Rather unlikely I think.
But of course we don’t things like this on Earth Day, do we? To do so would be to lack class, and have the same rude, ill-mannered, and impolite attitudes that anti-Christmas extremists have, and get away with. But just for a moment it might be good to call the question on the secularists and media sympathizers, “What if, on Earth-day the same sort of tactics were used that are used against Christmas? How does it look? And how is it so different from what is increasingly happening at Christmas?”