I declare JIHAD!

When I Google searched "War on", "War on Christmas" was the 5th item on the list. After Terror, Drugs, Poverty, and Iraq. Before Afganistan, Crime, and Cancer. Glad we have our priorities straight.

Here we are on Christmas Eve, and I come to find out that we are under attack. Apparently, (and I have this on good authority), an actual WAR has been declared on Christmas!

When I first heard about it, I thought to myself "Who would want to declare WAR on Christmas?" Well, apparently everybody. It's a goddamned conspiracy is what it is. Those effing liberal, hippy, pot-smoking, tree-hugging, commie, pinko, leftist, athiestic looney-birds are literally trying to remove CHRIST from CHRISTMAS. I mean... how can they do that? It says it right there in the name of the holiday for the love of Mike.

I hear, and this is no unsubstantiated report, that store clerks are being instructed to say "Happy Holidays" to their customers! What a fucking outrage. Here we are, proud and fantastic Christians, and these complete strangers are being instructed to not single us out and make us feel even more entitled and special than we already do! It's ridiculous is what that is. As soon as I'm done with this blog, I'm going to fucking boycott Katz' Delicatessen for not wishing me the Merry CHRIST-MASS that I deserve to be wished.

What's next? Will they start asking my pregnant sister to walk into the back alley with them so they can perform that 3rd tri-mester abortion? Will they trick me into walking down the aisle with one of my deliciously handsome male friends (who are all completely straight) and marry their virile asses?

Soon we're all going to be socialists and we'll be voting for Muslims for President (Ooopss! Too late!) and we're all going to be worshipping some fucker named Charlie Darwin and celebrating Darwinmas.

Well.. Not me! I've had enough. Next time someone has the unmitigated gall to with me a "Happy Holidays", I'm going to punch them in their fat fucking face.

Okay... so the past few paragraphs are paraphrases of things I've been hearing and seeing everywhere for the last couple of years around this time. Christians here and there get all up in arms about how people are trying to "secularize" Christmas, and "Take the Christ out of Christmas" and how Christians have been minoritized and descriminated against and whatnot, and you know what?

I don't see it. I don't understand how wishing a person you don't know "Happy Holidays" can ever be taken as anything other than a pleasantry.

I want someone who believes that Christmas is being devalued by writing "X-Mas" (and wishing "Happy Holidays" and having non-denominational Winter Celebrations in public schools) to explain to me how. HOW? I don't get it.

I was at Disney World between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2005 and when the Magic Kingdom opened, they had their usual show to start the day. This one had a definite holiday theme, and the "Mayor" wished the crowd "Happy Holidays Folks!". One lady in the crowd made a point of shouting "You mean MERRY CHRISTMAS!" and I honestly wanted to go over there and say "You do realize you're not the only one here right? You realize there are Jews who have paid the same money as you to be here. And probably Muslims and Buddhists and a ton of other faiths? You realize the world doesn't center around you."

I didn't, of course, because what's the point?

I first started blogging over at Xanga, specifically to have a running dialogue with a fundamentalist Christian from Georgia, and he would often rail about these kinds of things. One thing I learned in my 2 or so years of debates with him is that there rarely would actually BE a debate. His arguments and positions were usually populated with straw men and no matter the logic, no matter the backup documentation, his position never changed or even bent slightly. I realized there's no real point in arguing past stating your point, because his tautological bent was too strong to truly puncture. He's certainly not the odd-duck in that. Fundamentalism is predicated on the willful ignorance of facts.

I've wondered aloud for some time who, exactly, was being harmed by the innocuous wishing of "Happy Holidays".

I have certainly seen no evidence to demonstrate that Christmas has been weakened commercially. I still see inflated Reindeer everywhere. I still see twinkly lights. And Sales and manger scenes and everything that just shouts "CHRISTMAS". For every 1 mention of Hanukah or Kwanzaa I see about a billion mentions of Christmas. For every non-Christmas holiday song I hear (which is basically none) I hear about a billion Christmas songs. Basically what I'm saying is Christmas is everywhere, and it's gonna take a lot more than a dude at Macys saying something as harmless and pleasant as "Happy Holidays" to take anything away from it.

If the argument is that Christmas is being secularized, well... that may be true, but that's been the case, pretty much since well.... since the Catholic Romans decided to celebrate Jesus' birthday at an inaccurate time just to blend in with the Romans celebrating the pagan holiday of Saturnalia at the same time. Based on all kinds of scientific evidence involving astronomy and whatnot, Jesus would have been born some time in the Spring. The whole business is pretty secularized and has been for millenia.

Oh... and what exactly is a company like Disney or Sears or whomever supposed to do? The whole purpose of having a business is to make money, and unless you're a Christian Book Store or something like that, you're probably not really intent on alienating large groups of people by singling them out or leaving them out. Seems like bad business practice when Jews and Muslims and Kwanzaa-celebrators and everyone else have spending money too. Why intentionally leave people out just because it makes another group feel special. Even sadder is that the group all upset about this nonsense has more special treatment bestowed upon them than any other group in the history of the fucking world.

There is one thing that scares me about the whole thing. This same particular group of Christians who are so adamant about attention being paid are the ones who behave least like Christians are supposed to. There is no other cheek being turned. This is the same group who levied death threats against a billboard sign owner who rented space to an athiest group. This is the same group who boycotts funerals holding "God Hates Fags" signs. Far be it from me to be the judge of who is "Good" and who is "Bad", but these people don't seem good to me.

I personally think it's a good thing that our country allows for all voices to be heard equally. I personally think it's a good thing that there are rules in place that keep religion (the most divisive force in the history of the world) out of the public school systems. I personally think it's a good thing that a company like Disney insists on inclusion by saying "Happy Holidays".

I could easily take this argument in other directions too, as it extends to things like gay marriage...

How does a man getting married to another man (assuming they're getting married out of love, and not because one of them is knocked up... *cough* Sarah Palin *cough*) devalue the "institution" of marriage? Aside from the always logical answer "because it does", I don't see how. That is for another time.

In any case, I'm done for today. I've said nothing new, but I've ranted and raved a little and made my point to the people who already agree...so I got that goin' for me.

I hope this blog finds you all happy and healthy and full of holiday cheer. Whatever holiday you celebrate.