VDARE.com's 2001 War Against Christmas Competition! [I] [II] [IV] [V] [VI]

War Against Christmas Competition [III]: More Victories!

Well, this year, resistance seems to be a trend. The county executive of Washington State’s King County put out a memo banning employees from wishing each other Merry Christmas,” but later “clarified” it under pressure.

Similarly, “Laurea” from Canada, much closer to Santa, wrote to tell us that the Manitoba Legislature had abolished Christmas. (Manitoba is the Canadian Province just north of North Dakota and Minnesota. They have a moderately socialist government, about like Massachusetts or Sweden.) On December 13^th Tom Brodbeck wrote in the Winnipeg Sun that

If you want to see a good example of political correctness gone absolutely mad, take a stroll down to the Manitoba Legislature and visit the "multicultural tree."

It's a Christmas tree, actually—a Manitoba spruce with a bunch of decorations on it and an angel on top.

But they don't call it a Christmas tree because they don't want to offend anyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas.

In fact, government has quietly taken the word "Christmas" out of its political lexicon altogether.

Christmas no longer appears in any provincial government news release and they haven't called the Christmas tree in the Legislature rotunda a "Christmas tree" in 12 years. [VDARE.COM NOTE: For most of those twelve years, Manitoba had nominally Conservative government.] 

Everyone in Manitoba seems to have hit the snow-laden roof.  Only four days later, Brodbeck was writing a column headed “Doer gets it right”:

"We should call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree," [Premier Frank] Doer told The Sun. “I wasn't aware the name was changed - I think it's being politically correct beyond reason."

"I have absolutely no difficulty in this Legislature reflecting some of the major religions. But I don't like sanitizing (religions) - I don't like taking the word Christ out of Christmas."  

"If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck you should call it a duck," said Doer. "It's a Christmas tree."

Doer says he's in favor of recognizing other religions and celebrating their traditions at the Legislature, such as the Hindu celebration of Diwali which takes place in the fall.

But it doesn't mean you forget about your own traditions, he said.

Let’s savor the ringing words of Premier Frank Doer, the first North American elected official to speak out, the (no doubt inadvertent) Patrick Henry of the Christmas patriots: 

“We should call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree…it’s being politically correct beyond reason.”

A Texas reader writes:

Here at Wilmer-Hutchins H.S., there is a manger scene outside the main office — dead ahead as you enter the school. That's pretty bold.

Of course, this is a predominantly black school, and the entire cast is black. An interesting twist. 

(Not only are there African-American Nativity Scenes, there are a variety of African-American Santa, er, rather Kente Clauses.)

Some more good news you may have missed: the attempt to ban Christmas has been banned.  Around 1990, Frederick Kiel suggested satirically that the US ban Christmas as a national holiday. Proving that you can’t make this stuff up, around 1998, a Richard Ganulin started a real suit to make it a reality. It was rejected repeatedly. The Becket Fund asked the Supreme Court to tell him to go away, once and for all. On April 17 of this year, the Becket Fund announced the "End of the Line for the 'Grinch'":

Becket Fund President Kevin Hasson described the Supreme Court's action as "the end of the line for the ‘Grinch.' The outcome of this three-year battle to defend the federal Christmas holiday was pretty plain from the beginning," he noted, "but it was an important battle to fight. It affirms once again that government may reflect American culture in all its complexity, and that includes designating holidays with religious and non-religious origins alike."

But nevertheless, the War Against Christmas goes on. NewsMax.com has its own report:

The county school board in Covington, Ga., censored the word "Christmas" from the school calendar after the fanatically anti-religious group that calls itself American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue, sue, sue.

NewsMax.com’s report is based on files from the Rutherford Institute, which deals with religious persecution in America. Christmas is busy time of year for persecutors and persecuted alike.

And an anonymous VDARE.COM reader writes:

I was checking out Orvis' sales online when I saw they had a beautiful black sweater decked out with holiday motifs. This was advertised as a "Winter Solstice" sweater. I didn't know there was such a thing.

In this particular war, the Bush Administration appears to be Absent Without Leave. There’s been a crèche in the White House since 1967 (apparently the Secret Service has protected it from secular humanists). This week, however, they’re also celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, traditionally celebrated with a feast and a bombing pause.

According to the New York Times:

But since Sept. 11, the president has kept his personal belief in Christianity unusually private — he would not say this week whether he still reads the Bible every day — as he has made extraordinary gestures to Islam. The politics here are as obvious as they are praised, particularly by Muslims pleased that the White House has continually said that its war is against Osama bin Laden and not the prophet Muhammad.

The New York Times is also wondering if they’re going to celebrate Buddha’s birthday. Silly question! At VDARE.COM we celebrate Buddha’s Birthday in May as the Good Lord intended.

The New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman has a column praising American “religious tolerance,” which he seems to think is a substitute for missile defense. He was immediately met with a letter saying:

Thomas L. Friedman ("Spiritual Missile Shield," column, Dec. 16) cites the acceptance of Judaism by the Christian community in America as an example of our religious tolerance, but America has so far failed in incorporating other religions like Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism into our culture. These are the second, third and fourth most popular religions in the world, and the fastest-growing religions in America, yet we do not see their holidays celebrated publicly as we do Christmas and Hanukkah.

America will be able to call itself a religiously plural nation when TV stations run happy holiday messages for these religions, when school orchestras play their music and when department stores have sales in honor of their holidays.

NOAM ROSS
Ossining, N.Y., Dec. 16, 2001

There are actually good reasons for not incorporating Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism into the American culture. But before the Immigration Act of 1965 there were not enough Muslims or Hindus in the United States to worry about. Today, if Mr. Ross is to believed, World War II’s Four Chaplains would have to be replaced by seven, nine, or twelve for their sacrifice to be authentic.

Finally, talking of being AWOL, National Review’s Dec. 17 number carries a banner across the upper left-hand corner reading HOLIDAY BOOKS. Of course, last year, what was clearly a Christmas poem by Michael Graham was headed under a banner saying Holiday 2000, “Some holiday verse, from an NRO regular.”  

Like we say, it’s hard to believe that our Christmas Competition began life there.