-Kelly-

Christians protest actions that play down Christmas' religious nature
By Richard Willing, USA TODAY

Julie West is tired of being wished "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." She's annoyed with department stores that use "Season's Greetings" banners, and with public schools that teach about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa but won't touch the Nativity story.

In a CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 44% of Americans said the trend toward "Happy Holidays" is a change for the better, and 43% said it wasn't.
AP file

So last week, she sent a baked protest to a holiday party at her first-grade son's school: a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and red icing that spelled out "Happy Birthday Jesus."

"Christmas keeps getting downgraded, to the point that you're almost made to feel weird if you even mention it," says West, a resident of Edmonds, Wash., who describes herself as a non-denominational Christian. "What's the matter with recognizing the reason behind the whole holiday?"

This Christmas season, West has plenty of company. Christians and traditionalists across the nation, fed up with what they view as the de-emphasizing of Christmas as a religious holiday, are filing lawsuits, promoting boycotts and launching campaigns aimed at restoring references to Christ in seasonal celebrations.

From New Jersey to California, Christians are moving to counter years of lawsuits that have made governments wary about putting Nativity scenes on public property, and that occasionally have led schools to drop Christmas carols from holiday programs:

• In Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., a Christian sued in federal court after town officials refused to let her erect a Nativity scene next to a menorah, or Hanukkah candelabra, on a causeway. Last week, a judge ordered the town to comply.

• In Maplewood, N.J., parents and students recently petitioned the local school board after school officials dropped even instrumental versions of Christmas music from class programs.

• In Denver, a Protestant church responded to the city's decision to drop "Merry Christmas" from public signs by trying to enter a Christmas-themed float in the holiday parade. Supporters picketed the parade and sang Christmas carols after the float was rejected.

• In California, a group called the Committee to Save Merry Christmas is boycotting Federated Department Stores. The group claims that Federated's affiliates, including Macy's, prohibit clerks from saying "Merry Christmas" and ban the word "Christmas" from ads and store displays. The retail giant says it has no such policy.

Even Kwanzaa, the African-American harvest celebration, has taken a hit. In Los Angeles, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a conservative black activist, has urged black Christians to spurn Kwanzaa, which he calls a "pagan holiday."

Split over 'Happy Holidays'

The new battles over religion's role in holiday celebrations come more than two decades after the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups began going to court to try to require municipalities to remove Nativity scenes and other religious displays from public property. The ACLU argued that such religious symbols violated the First Amendment's ban on government-endorsed religion.

In two rulings in the 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court said that Nativity scenes are acceptable when they are combined with other symbols — such as a Santa Claus house — that indicate Christmas is a secular holiday in American culture as well as a religious one.

Nevertheless, the threat of lawsuits and a desire to be more sensitive to the nation's growing number of non-Christians — who made up about 18% of the U.S. population in a 2002 survey by Pew Charitable Trusts — has led many governments, schools and businesses to de-emphasize Christ in Christmastime celebrations. Phrases such as "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" have replaced "Merry Christmas" at many public venues.

In a new CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 44% of Americans surveyed said the trend toward "Happy Holidays" is a change for the better, and 43% said it wasn't. Only 11%, however, said they avoid saying "Merry Christmas" out of fear of offending someone.

Carol Sanger, spokeswoman for Federated Department Stores, says Federated employees use phrases such as "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" interchangeably with "Merry Christmas" in order to be "more reflective of the multicultural society in which we live."

She says the chain aims to "embrace all" the religious and secular holidays that occur in November and December.

"If you were Druid, I'd be wishing you a 'Scintillating Solstice,' " Sanger says.

John Whitehead, director of the Rutherford Institute, a group in Charlottesville, Va., that defends against challenges to speech and religion rights, says the recent trend has been for schools and municipalities to excise "all mention of Christmas, out of some misshapen idea that this respects diversity."

He is particularly critical of decisions such as that made by the school board in Maplewood, N.J., which decided to drop traditional carols and other Christmas music from public school programs during the mid-1990s after receiving several complaints.

This year, the ban was extended even to instrumental versions of Christmas songs.

Board President Brian O'Leary said in a statement that playing songs that "focus on religious holidays ... could become an opportunity not to learn about a religious holiday or tradition, but to celebrate it."

Bans are 'misplaced'

Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., says that such bans are "rare" and "misplaced."

Court decisions, Haynes says, permit public school students to study religion and to perform religious music as part of the curriculum, provided that religious practices are not endorsed.

Whitehead says that overly cautious approaches to mentioning Christ in Christmas celebrations has meant that "in the name of offending no one, you now have high school kids who can't play music that's part of the culture, and store clerks who are afraid to say, 'Merry Christmas.' It takes a joyous and merry day and just makes it blah."

Sandra Snowden agrees. According to papers she filed in a federal lawsuit, the resident of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., was "offended" that the town allowed a menorah, but not a Nativity scene, to be placed along a public causeway.

When she protested, court papers say, town leaders countered that the menorah, which commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after a Jewish military victory in 165 B.C., was a secular symbol of freedom.

Before a federal judge ruled in her favor, Snowden rejected the town's offer to install a Christmas tree rather than a Nativity scene, which the town officials had called "divisive."

Those seeking to put more Christ into Christmas have had other successes.

In Mustang, Okla. on Dec. 14, parents incensed that a Nativity sequence had been dropped from a school holiday program organized to help defeat an $11 million school bond referendum.

And in Washington state, cake maker Julie West is claiming a small victory.

Although her son's teacher expressed some misgivings, West served slices of her "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake to 20 first-graders and about five other parents. No one complained, she says.

"I had gotten a legal opinion from the Rutherford Institute saying I was within my rights before I brought the cake to school," West says. "That's Christmas this year, I guess: candy cane frosting and a legal opinion."

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I agree.

I'm not a Christian, but I say "Merry Christmas"

**Lisa**

I dont get the whole point. Those that believe in a religion, go right ahead and do that but dont jump down our throats when we say those thing's..we arent forcing our beleifs? onto you so you shouldnt force it onto us by saying that we shouldnt say this or that because believe it or not, Christmas is about spending time with your family for most people in the world now, not about how we got here, who got us here and so forth.

*Ledi*

I agree.

I think this is so stupid. Who cares if people say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas?!

Some people really do have too much time on their hands.

*Lauren

This I have no problem with. They're promotion one religion above another.

I agree with this. Have it all, just try and keep the religios aspects out. You can sing Christmas carols and not have it be about Jesus.

- Jen -

my sister and i both work in retail, and were told to wish people a "merry Christmas" wasnt a problem at my work, however my sister wished someone a merry christmas, and the lady went and threw a hissy fit at my sisters manager, and my sister ended up getting fined (they get $25 in monopoly money, and get fined when they do something wrong, when they hit $0 they get fired) which i think is just crap.

I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this issue. I dont see the problem with singing Christmas Carols etc, and those who dont celebrate Christmas dont participate, the same as Christians dont join in with activities for other religious events...

*Lauren

What? They get $25 in Monopoly money and get fired when they run out? What stupid ****ing thing is that? Especilly since you were TOLD to say it.

I worked on Christmas Day and refused to wish anyone Merry Christmas. Someone complained to my supervisior about me not saying it, my response being "I assumed anyone who was here didn't celebrate Christmas" (thank God it wasn't my manager she would have killed me) My supervisior wanted to kill me, mainly because she had to hold the laughter in.

WinterPolaris

My mother's workplace actually does not allow celebrations of religious holidays. It's not just Christmas; they actually aren't allow to throw Halloween parties because some of the employees there complained about it. So now it's part of her office's policy to not celebrate any holidays with religious ties. I guess that just shows you can't satisfy everyone all the time, and if even one person complains, everyone else suffers as well.

- Jen -

its a ridiculous system, and would you believe it is Coles Supermarkets they do gain money if they do something good.

When i was working on Christmas Eve, i only wished people a merry Christmas if it was obvious they celebrated Christmas- buying wrapping paper/obviously presents etc otherwise i just said "have a nice weekend" I really didnt want to deal with someone yelling at me

sick little jag

People who complain about the Nativity scene not being taught in school need to be smacked, ok. The majority of people in this country are some denomination of christianity. Most children, christian or not, already know the story of the nativity before they're in grade school. I'm not christian, and I knew it before I started school.

They teach about Hannukah and Kwanza because it's not something everyone knows. I probably only know about Hannukah because I'm Jewish, but I really don't know what kwanza is about.

But like your average kid is going to know what Hannukah or Kwanza is about if they are christian and sheltered without learning about it in school. Hannukah isn't a particularly "religious" religious holiday in Judaism. Christmas is about the birth of Christ and is a biggie for Christians. Hannukah is about the Macabes fighting to save the Temple and the miracle of enough oil for only one night lasting 8 days and nights.

hmm....imaculate conception or strangly long lasting oil?

whatever. These people need to pick their battles. Not everyone in the world is Christian and it seems like this giant narcisist epidemic of wankery to make everyone cater to them. It's not like it's offensive, but it does annoy me just a smidge to be wished a merry christmas. I have this impusle to go "Bah! Not Christian! Leave me alone!", but I wouldn't go so far as to bitch someone out over it.

-Kelly-

That's wrong

pixiedude

Yesterday, I was reading on cartoonist Tom Tomorrow's site, This Modern World, about how Bill O'Reilly has made this his latest hobby-horse. He included a link to a post on the site of August Pollak, another cartoonist, who posted an invite he'd gotten to Fox News Corp's company Christmas Party.

"Why does O'Reilly's boss hate Christmas?"

The invitation shows a Christmas tree ornament reflecting a palm tree, with the words, "Caribbean Holiday Celebration". The word "Christmas" appears no where.

I did a quick google of "roots of Christmas", and got this:

--On the Roots of Christmas

I remember the Saturnalia connection, so I looked it up, and found this in Wikipedia:
It's clear from these passages how Christmas is really meant to be observed by the true traditionalist.

Ms. Fiction

This is why I go with the simple 'have a happy happy and a merry merry', I'm not actually saying the names of the holidays so it cant really offend anyone.

Mio

What really gets me is now there are no more Christmas Concerts at schools. I lived for these, and now they're stupid "Holiday" or "Winter Concerts". If you don't celebrate Christmas, then don't come or have your child participate! These little kids are looking foward to singing Christmas Carols and now they have to sing "Frosty the Snowman" because they can't sing "Oh Holy Night". "Oh Holy Night" was my solo when I was 11 and now other kids can't get the chance to shine because of PC.

TokyoNiGHTS

Schools are meant to be all inclusive, so having kids sing songs that don't celebrate all religions isn't inclusive. It's basically saying "Your religion doesn't matter as much as this one". So to make it even you simply have them sing songs that everyone can relate to. What's really so wrong with that?

If parents feel it's that important for their kids to sing those type of Christmas carols them have their local church set it up. That way you know it'll be including everyone in that church and it won't be offending anyone.

SuperDeluxe

Call me someone who is not entirely religious. But I have gotten tired of season's greetings, happy holidays.

Every chance I get at work I say merry christmas. Hell our christmas party was called 'winter celebration'

gimme a flippin break!