Chipping away at Christmas

[MTLskyline]

Hope that this isn't classified as politics.

Chipping away at Christmas

Lorne Gunter, National Post

Published: Wednesday, December 24, 2008

 

Every year at about this time, there is a new batch of news stories detailing how the forces of political correctness and atheism are attempting to stamp out all public references to Christmas.

 

The same people behind turning your neighbourhood school's Christmas concert into a Winter Family Festival would be appalled by the arrogance of any small band of Christians seeking to expunge all references to Diwali -- the Hindu festival of lights -- from public institutions in New Delhi or public mentions of Ramadan in Riyadh. Still, they cannot see the arrogance of their own attempts to impose minority secularist beliefs on the mainstream culture in Toronto or Regina or Halifax.

 

Typically, they explain away their actions as efforts to protect non-Christians from being offended by overt references to a distinctly Christian festival. But whether or not they will admit it, their campaigns are nearly always selfish attempts to shield themselves from messages and symbols they dislike. The feelings of non-Christians are typically nothing more than a cover.

 

Indeed, non-Christians are seldom behind movements to have Nativity scenes pulled from public squares, Christmas carols replaced with holiday songs or "Merry Christmas" substituted with "Season's Greetings." The culprits are most often anti-Christians -- people of little or no faith who have grown tired of all the jollity and goodwill this time of year.

 

Elsewhere this week, I wrote about this same subject -- the annual efforts to chip away at Christmas. My piece provoked many strong, negative responses, typical of which was one I received from a reader in Edmonton who wondered why she and her family "have to be confronted with all this Christmas crap everywhere we go?"

 

Well, you're confronted with it because it is a free country. No one (thankfully) can make the malls and department stores stop hanging wreathes and playing canned Christmas tunes, just as no one (thankfully) can prevent my cranky correspondent from venting her disgust.

 

Her belief, though, that she should be able to live her life without ever confronting "Christmas crap," is typical of the obnoxiousness of modern human rights thinking. It holds that certain favoured groups should never face messages with which they disagree. This has led to the distorted notion among members of politically correct groups that they will never be truly free until people with whom they disagree are made to shut up, or at least relegated to speaking their minds only in private.

 

No doubt my atheist e-mailer views herself as a paragon of tolerance, the epitome of enlightenment. And I am certain it is difficult to live one's beliefs (or lack thereof ) when the culture all around is giddy with Christmas spirit.

But just imagine how devoted Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents feel when trying to keep their children chaste in a culture soaked through with sexual messaging and imagery.

 

In a society that values free expression, we all have to put up with views with which we disagree, sometimes overwhelming views. That's the true meaning of tolerance.

 

A lot of modern rights advocates have convinced themselves that tolerance means agreement and affirmation, not merely acceptance. That's a great theory until someone in authority -- such as human rights commissioners -- has the power to establish a hierarchy of tolerance and your views are on the bottom rung.

 

Tolerance means exactly putting up with all the Christmas crap and Hanukkah crap and Kwanza crap and even atheist crap, so that others will put up with whatever crap is your crap, too.

 

Campaigns to forbid candy canes from schools (because they represent the shepherd's crook and Jesus was the shepherd and so candy canes are religious symbols) or to remove Christmas lights from the trees and buildings in public squares may seem tolerant, when in truth they are merely the latest form of intolerance.

 

The notion that these campaigns are altruistic efforts to shelter sensitive non-Christians from the theological imperialism of the dominant culture around them is just the latest excuse the intolerant minority is using to impose its own secular theology on the rest of us.

 

So here is an act of sedition:Merry Christmas. And while we're at it: Peace on Earth and goodwill toward all people.

lgunter@shaw.ca

 

Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=0117e486-7567-4fea-babf-5c8030e44534

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[jesseps]

Christmas tree... Hanukkah bush same shit.

 

Merry Christmas... Happy Hanukkah... Seasons Greetings... Happy Holidays whipty fucking do.

 

All I can say Jesus is rolling in grave right now seeing what has become of his glorious bday. I bet if he was alive he would freak out knowing the day after his birth, there is something called boxing day. Like WTF is up with that!

 

Anyways I wont rant.

 

This Political Correctness is getting no where. If certain minorities can't stand some simple words, just fucking deal with it.

[yarabundi]

All I can say Jesus is rolling in grave right now seeing what has become of his glorious bday.

And so is Buddah, Mohammed or any other man and woman of peace that lived trough History !! looking at all this non-sens.

[Kotar]

If certain minorities can't stand some simple words, just fucking deal with it.

 

The worst part is most minorities really don't care. For some reason we're just horribly afraid that we'll offend them

[Habsfan]

MOre right wing, INtolarant bull shit ranting from the Naitonal Post. SHould we expect anything less from that Xenophobic newspaper?

[MTLskyline]

MOre right wing, INtolarant bull shit ranting from the Naitonal Post. SHould we expect anything less from that Xenophobic newspaper?

You have it in for that paper! I personally cringe when I read some articles from Le Devoir, Le Journal de Montréal or the Globe and Mail. Anyways to each his own.

 

What's so intolerant about the article? He's just pointing out that minorities shouldn't be dictating what holidays we're allowed to celebrate.

 

In my Christmas card from Stephen Harper, it wished us a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Season's Greetings. I frankly am not offended at seeing a greeting towards another religion, but I am offended at having my religion, Christianity, removed in exchange for a generic and meaningless "Happy Holidays".

 

And Kotar got it right here. 90% of religious minorities don't care, it's usually the Atheists who cause the problems.

[MTLskyline]

And so is Buddah, Mohammed or any other man and woman of peace that lived trough History !! looking at all this non-sens.

I agree with you here.

Christianity's core value is peace. Have Christians always been peaceful, certainly not.

Islam is the same type of thing.

 

There is always someone who ruins the peace. (Even people on the right want to live in a peaceful society ).

[Habsfan]

You have it in for that paper! I personally cringe when I read some articles from Le Devoir, Le Journal de Montréal or the Globe and Mail. Anyways to each his own.

NO, the National Post is well kown for it's right-wing views and that of it's reporters/readers. It is the ONLY paper that I find which will consistently print right-wing articles... and I don't even consider myself to be a left-wing advocate. I have no problems with Le Devoir, The G&M or LaPresse. Nweiother with The Gazette or the Journal de Montréal...although, I do have somwhat of a hard time with teh Journal de M. but that's mostly because i find it to be somwhat simplistic(lots of pictures, not much text) and sensationalistic(just look at their front page most of the time and you,ll understand)!

[MTLskyline]

NO, the National Post is well kown for it's right-wing views and that of it's reporters/readers. It is the ONLY paper that I find which will consistently print right-wing articles... and I don't even consider myself to be a left-wing advocate. I have no problems with Le Devoir, The G&M or LaPresse. Nweiother with The Gazette or the Journal de Montréal...although, I do have somwhat of a hard time with teh Journal de M. but that's mostly because i find it to be somwhat simplistic(lots of pictures, not much text) and sensationalistic(just look at their front page most of the time and you,ll understand)!

Yeah, the National Post was established to be English Canada's national newspaper that takes a right-wing stance on everything as opposed to the Globe and Mail which usually takes a left-wing stance. Conservatives generally like reading the Post, just like Liberals read the Globe, and left-wing sovreignists read Le Devoir. Le Devoir and the National Post seem to have the opposite view on almost everything.

 

La Presse I don't mind, even though it leans a little Liberal. The Gazette is odd, because its "news" stories usually have a Liberal-bias, whereas editorials tend to be pro-Conservative. And I completley agree with you on le Journal de Montréal, it tends to sensationalize small stories to move copies of the paper (just like the "Sun" chain in the rest of Canada). Although the J de M has the best sports coverage of any Montreal newspaper.

[Habsfan]

Although the J de M has the best sports coverage of any Montreal newspaper.

 

No doubt about it!