Season's Greetings

As if I needed another reason to hate this time of year, it has recently been reported that evangelical Christians have been threatening local governments and commercial businesses with lawsuits if they persist in putting up “Holiday Trees” instead of Christmas trees or if they require their employees to greet customers with “Happy Holidays” instead of “ Merry Christmas.” Evidently, the dour yahoos who have the red-ass about this non-issue have retained an armada of lawyers to sue if this heinous practice is continued.

It would seem that there is some strain of thought out there in those places where I don’t hang out that there is a conspiracy afoot (and it’s always a conspiracy, right?) to sanitize the religious aspect of the holidays out of our public discourse. Or conversely, it is contended that this allegedly subtle form of secularizing the holidays commercializes it even further. As if that is even possible.
Or so I thought. There was an interesting article about this whole minor league brouhaha in yesterday’s New York Times. It was written by a guy named Adam Cohen which I commend to your attention by directing you here: This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else - New York Times . Anyway, Cohen traces the history of Christmas in the United States and comes down to the conclusion that trying to force businesses to adopt the rituals and iconography of Christianity-and this here is what is referred to as a perverse result and as is the case with most perverse results it is exceedingly delicious-the yahoos in charge of this ersatz civil rights movement actually run the risk of commercializing it further.
Look, I don’t much care one way or the other although I will concede that it is just plain stupid to call a Christmas tree anything other than a Christmas tree regardless of whether it is in the courthouse square or erected up by the baptistery. But do we really need to clog up the courts by litigating this non-issue?
I mean, Jerry Falwell and Donald Wildmon and their ilk have every right in the world to go to the courthouse and give it a run. And I bet they don’t even much care if they lose. The Religious Right is the only organization in the history of fundraising that views getting clobbered in court as some sort of Pyrrhic victory. Which happens to them with something approaching frequency.

But I don’t get it. It’s not enough that they are trying to blow up science curriculums all over the country? They are not content to seek the intrusion of the state into the personal lives of men and women? Particularly women? Not to mention all the other dumb crap involving the public schools from prayer to banning books.

Isn’t this enough spurious litigation already for one little old fringy belief system? After being trounced by Tinky-Winky of the Teletubbies they are now going to take on Samuel Clements Moore? Are they not sufficiently pre-occupied?

Lord. I am so tired.

Anyway, read Cohen’s piece. I know what some of you are thinking. “A guy named Cohen writing for the New York Times. Let me guess how this article turns out.” Well, don’t be so hasty. I happen to know a guy named Cohen. He practices law in Ft. Smith. He’s a Baptist. You could look it up. Things aren’t always as they seem.

Oh. Happy Winter Solstice. See ya in court!