This Winter Solstice, the Winter Elf gave me a shotgun and a barrel of fish
Published by Kyso Kisaen December 7th, 2006 in Conformity, Fucking Holidays, HUH!?, Public ProcrastinationIt’s finals week starting tomorrow, so rather than do anything insightful I thought I’d just make fun some chick I found on the internets for a bit. I got her from the same place that Marc got Amanda Sopasto. Lindsey Russell caught my eye with her bold essay, As Arrogant as He May Be, Bill O’Reilly is Right Regarding the Culture War: The War on Christmas. I can’t resist me some war on Christmas mocking.
First off, I want to clarify a couple of things:
1. I agree with Bill O’Reilly’s statements regarding the culture wars and the war on Christmas.
Just to clarify, do you really mean all his statements? Like, including the batshit paranoid ones? And the blatent lies? Or the batshit paranoid lies?
3. I am a Christian.
4. I believe that everyone in the United States has the right to express his or her own religion. We should not be a homogeneous country made up entirely of Christians.
And why not? Do you not appreciate the astonishing diversity of Christian thought? We could be 100% Christian and still have enough to bicker about until Jesus returns to tell us which Christian denomination was the most rightest. In fact, having to battle against the twin evils of tolerance and other religions is sucking up valuable time splitting Christian hairs, which is just one more reason we need Xmas up front and center this holiday season.
5. No religion should receive preferential treatment in the public sphere.
Except mine, that is. You know, the right one. No, I won’t tell you which one. It’s my salvation! Get your own!
Now that that’s out of the way, I will define the problem. I believe that there has been a concerted effort to thwart the public display of the Christian religion in recent years. It is no longer politically correct to say “Merry Christmas” or to display a nativity scene in front of city hall.
I believe that Lindsey lives under a very strictly athiest rock in a far away mountain right next to the last person on earth who had never heard of Coca-Cola. It makes more sense to me than her theory, which predicts that Cleveland’s Soft Rock WDOK declared itself “Cleveland’s Continuous Christmas station” and began playing exclusively holiday (holiday = 98.9% Christmas, 1.1% other) music begining the day after Thanksgiving in order to lead the battle against the forces of political correctness. Mayhaps when they did this last year (and the year before and so on) it was profitable? As for nativity scenes in front of city hall, perhaps Lindsey should read what she just wrote before writing more.
1. There has been a backlash against the politically correct “Happy Holidays.” Recently Wal-Mart announced that their greeters and cashiers will no longer say “Happy Holidays,” but will now say “Merry Christmas.”
*cough* Among other holiday greetings *cough*. Indeed, thank god those fearless FOX supported Christmas warriors were able to persuade WalMart to switch from one convenient all-inclusive greeting to a hodgepodge of greetings. Hopefully they’ll remember to supply cashiers with a list just incase they start falling back on “Happy holidays” after they you know, stop caring.
Personally, I think people have had enough of the generic, meaningless “Happy Holidays.” Let’s be honest, this country is still predominately Christian. That doesn’t mean that people who practice other religions or belief systems feel excluded. It simply means that ALL Americans should be free to express their religious beliefs in the public sphere. Separation of Church and State should not mean a complete ban on all public displays of religion.
“Happy holidays” is no less meaningful than any of the other meaningless crap Americans bandy about to display the minimum requisite acknowledgement of each other’s existence. For example, when I ask you “what’s up” I don’t really care what’s up with you. And when that nice Ukranian scientist from the lab downstairs asks me how I am, I assume that’s just something they told him to say in English class way back whenever, and I respond “hello” and keep walking. This might drive him nuts, but I can’t tell because I’m already walking away. Similarly, happy holidays means “it’s the season to be polite and friendly. So here’s some friendly politeness.” If you ever want “merry christmas” to slide back into that kind of use, then you need to stop spending every year tainting it with the unspoken “screw you, Jew! (Muslim, Pagan, whatever)” by bitching about how oppressed Christmas is.
In addition, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the difference between you as a private person going to the park and screaming about how Christian you are and then erecting a life-size backlit nativity in your yard, and your councilman spending city dollars on a holiday display that has significance to only one portion of the city’s residents. Or the difference between WalMart encouraging the use of “Happy Holidays” over or under “Merry Christmas” as a company policy, and say an elementary school keeping the holiday pagent blandly secular in order to prevent the appearance of a state-run institution endorsing a specific holiday. The differences are there, just keep looking.
But hey, why not just accept that the best way to maximize profits, avoid hurt feelings and skip over costly 1st Amendment lawsuits is to just be bland and civil? You get the lights, the sales, and pretty although non-specific decorations in your stores and public buildings and all the nativity scenes or god help us, blow up santa clauses that your yard can contain.
Or you could suggest a completely insane solution.
In my opinion, there is a simple solution to all of this mess. Why not allow public religious displays from EVERY religion?
Umm, is Lindsey aware that there are more than three religions? And that some of the others are kind of wierd? And that that kind of civic policy encourages people like me to threaten to take the city to court if my religious beliefs are not respected by placing my BDSM nativity somewhere on the village green, not too far from the sweet spot occupied by the more boring nativity and the giant menorah? Someone hasn’t thought this one through.
It would be appropriate for a city such as New York City to have both a Christian and a Jewish holiday display.
My mistake, Lindsey apparently believes that there are only two religions.
I simply don’t see how you could go wrong with such a simple system.
Then you’re not being creative enough, sweetie. I can think of a few hilarious results right off the top of my head.
Getting rid of religion in the public sphere is a dangerous step towards losing religious freedom.
Riiiiigggggghhhhhhhhtttttttttt. I like how she ends the essay with that statement, as though it is self-evident. Come back, Lindsey, keep typing. We beg you to expand on that.
Linsdey, who is quite a prolific writer, had posted a “Girls Guide to Google v Yahoo!” on the very day that she wrote her Christmas schtick. I’m not sure what made this guide specifically for girls, unless she meant to make the background pink but couldn’t figure it out. She might not be that computer literate, as it’s two-thousand-fucking-six and she JUST FOUND GOOGLE LABS. But found it she has and she’s ditching yahoo! and because everyone on the internets needs and wants exactly what she needs and wants, maybe you should switch to google too. Of course, it’s not perfect:
As for Yahoo! Local, I haven’t come across a Google alternative yet. Yahoo! Local provides information and reviews for local business - based upon your zip code. It is handy - and you can provide your own feedback as well.
I guess she hasn’t gotten to the L’s in google labs yet. Don’t tell her that you can make any search local by entering your search terms and your zip code.
Cleveland pisses all over Christmas, 2005
I think erecting a small satanist display in her town, right next to the xtian hooha, would be just the thing to brighten her winter!
I don’t understand why a website would pay money for debate class essays written by eleven-year-olds.
They don’t pay for every article that is posted, do they? I glanced at the FAQs and left with the impression that you can submit your articles for payment, but I didn’t see anything about postings being limited to those that you are paid for. But since my Lindsey is between jobs at the moment, I guess a guarenteed $3 - $20 payoff per submission would better explain her incredible output. Here I had it chalked up to boredom.
Maybe then (to honour my ancestors religion) I’ll demand a public space where I’ll sacrifice a horse, smear my self with the blood and engage in ritual copulation to ensure the fertilety of next years crop.
Only problem is Santa will have to give me a horse first…
“A display for every religion” would be a great solution, if a) you could find a public space big enough, b) there were any sort of widespread agreement over what’s a religion and what isn’t, c) every religion had some associated display either for a winter holiday or in general, d) no religion had a problem with other religions’ displays, and e) there were no pesky First Amendment barring government from promoting any religion, even on an equal basis with all the others.
The obvious answer is to adhere to community standards. A town with a predominant Christian population should be allowed to erect Christian seasonal displays, on a temporary basis, provided it is paid for with private funds. Never should public funding be used. In any community with a significant population of other religions, those faiths should be allowed to have their own seasonal displays, at the appropriate time of the year.
As for Wal-Mart and other such stores, concerning the “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays” hoopla, that is a matter of corporate policy. The government has no say in that. If people don’t like the stores policies, they can vote with their wallets.
I kind of like Frutkakes idea, at least the part about the copulating to insure fertitlity. Count me in.
A town with a predominantly Christian population is the last place that should have a Christian display on public property. I suspect the non-Christians feel beleaguered enough already.
I don’t think there should be any Christmas displays on public lands, and I’m glad the people like the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are out there fighting for the principled position and setting the proper left pole in the debate (unlike, say, NARAL’s recent unilateral surrender to a compromise position on its particular issue).
That said, survey after survey shows that the American public is way, way against us on this one (as with “under God” in the pledge) — we’re talking huge margins here. So if this or that Democratic politician wants to do a bit of triangulating against us over Christmas (or if this or that faceless multinational corporation wants to avoid a backlash over “Happy Holidays”), I’m not going to get all that upset. Because the issue just isn’t worth it — I mean, those heathen northern Europeans with their hard left abortion laws, social market economies and such seem to be able to function as liberal democracies despite having established churches of all things.
A display for every religion? That’s fantastic, and not at all complicated or infeasible!
God, I hated WDOK in December. Always playing that damn holiday music when I just wanted the Beatles or something.
But my, my, Cleveland does look pretty.