War on Some Holidays
I can't help it; I'm going to bang on about this some more.
Rep. Davis wants to protect symbols of christmas. Thank goodness there are elected representatives our there with perspective on the real and pressing problems that we are facing as a nation. Like the war on some holidays.
There was recently a story on local public radio to the effect that
some family
group was contacting Nebraska public school districts
to remind them that they cannot forbid students from saying merry
christmas
to each other...when it seems, in fact, that no one was
forbidding any such thing. See, that would be tromping on things that
are commonly understood to be rights guaranteed by the first amendment
of the Constitution.
I have two observations to make about these things.
First, it strikes me that any reading of the first amendment that tries to be inclusive of religion leads to madness. Consider that because of the majority of citizens are Christian, it's natural for a public school to plan on having a Christmas concert before the winter break in classes. However, if a Jewish family would like to see the inclusion of Hanukkah in the observance, the first amendment tells us that it must be included because that would be tantamount to establishing a religion—in this case by excluding other religions from seasonal observances.
This is untenable, of course, because every crank with a holy book (or not) is going to want their religion to be so celebrated. Then there will start to be arguments about whether a particular set of tenets is a religion at all, and it's downhill from there. And that's all before we get to the second independent clause of the first amendment—you know, the one about free speech—which guarantees the right of non-religious people to have a period of time during the Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Yule/Subgenius Devival/Saturnalia/Festivus Concert to stand up and declare that it's all a load of poppycock and could we please sing about something else.
In general, school administrators aren't dummies, so they avoid the whole mess by declaring it to be a generic holiday concert and that Santa and his reindeer will be sung about. Nobody objects to Santa, after all, because he brings presents. Snow, too, is an acceptable subject for songs, because it's merely a fact of the weather, not a matter of theological debate. (Though you might argue something about the intelligence of designing things to be built out of dirty water, then placing them in a freezing environment. Please ignore the man behind the curtain.)
Anyway, it makes perfect sense to me. Keep your personal beliefs, well, personal, and join with everyone else in celebrating that we each have personal beliefs, that we're meatbags occupying a planet that's freezing cold about half the time, and that we like getting presents.
But no!
shout some members of the most popular and influential
religion in the United States. We are being persecuted!
Oppressed!
Which leads me to my second thought: where the heck is this idea of a
war on some holidays coming from, anyway? Why are all these wackos
coming out of the woodwork just now? It seems to be in response to the book, The
War on Christmas
persecution!
, I return to my previous
to my previous paragraph. Something like 80% of Americans self-identify
as Christians, and more than 95%
celebrate Christmas. That doesn't sound like an oppressed group to
me. (Who ever heard of the oppressed 95%
?) Celebrate Christmas,
please. No one's stopping you, and they
probably couldn't. The rest of us are just really surprised you care
about whether the banners at Wally World say Happy Holidays!
Consuming is Patriotic!
or Merry Christmas! Possessions Equal
Status!
We also suspect that you'd be a bit put out if your child were
asked to participate in a Muslim call to prayer, even if that participation
were voluntary (but everyone else was doing it).
The whole point of the Constitutional restrictions on government with regard to religion, I write as a constitutional non-scholar, is to protect the minority from the majority. Sounds like the majority isn't happy about that, though, and they probably won't be happy until we all line up to sing O, Little Town of Bethlehem.
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