RoguePlanet

Death to the great Santa!

If I hadn't been AWOL for the past two weeks, I coulda posted about the Great War on Christmas before it was done to death. But no. Serves me right.

Anyway: Nothing says "peace on Earth, good will to men" like bearing false witness:

BY JOHN RILEY. STAFF WRITER

Last Tuesday, the Alliance Defense Fund - a Christian legal group founded by religious-right minister James Dobson - posted on its Web site a letter and news release warning the Jackson County, Ga., schools to lay off Christmas. The group said it had learned that the 6,000-student district northeast of Atlanta prohibited teachers from wearing angel pins, banned references to a "Christmas" party, removed some Christmas songs from a seasonal concert, took the word "God" out of another song, prohibited classroom Bibles and art with angels or nativity scenes, and banned the greeting "Merry Christmas."

The Christian law group offered to educate the school system about religious rights. But, warned senior counsel David Cortman, "When necessary, we litigate these issues."

Within 24 hours, Superintendent Andy Byars had digested the faxed letter - along with a small flood of incensed e-mail from around the Internet denouncing, sometimes in offensive terms, his schools. His head was spinning because, he said, almost none of the claims were district policy. "They could have picked up the phone and said, 'Could you respond?'" Byars said. "Instead, they sent out erroneous information."

How . . . Christian!

Told of the e-mail by Newsday on Friday, the district checked and said the principal, in her first year on the job, had received staff complaints about it before Alliance stepped in and had already been told to ease up - little cross or angel pins were fine. Bibles, the district says, can be used in Christmas lessons - they just can't be put on permanent, decorative "display."

Administrators haven't figured out the basis of the other complaints, but say they have been jarred by the emotion Alliance's release triggered. "You are either bigoted Jews who hate Christians or mindless secularists," noted one anonymous e-mail. " ... Go live in Israel."

Mr. O'Reilly added, "You're on my list."

Charles Haynes, a religion expert at the education group First Amendment Center in Washington, says the prominence of the issue among conservatives is part of a long-term shift.

Shift toward secular

Fifty years ago, he says, nativity scenes or religious carols in schools didn't even raise eyebrows. But legal rulings and increased religious diversity pushed norms toward more secular treatments and efforts at "inclusiveness." That shift, he believes, has triggered a deep anger.

I must take issue with Mr. Haynes, as I have found evidence of anti-Christmas bias going way back. Old Hollywood movies prove my point. Take the Bing Crosby movie "Holiday Inn," which aired on AMC earlier this evening. I suppose "Christmas Inn" would have been too devout for the depraved likes of Crosby. And "It's a Wonderful Life" - why no mention of the birth of Christ in the title? Because the anal-sex-loving secular Jews of Hollywood had already declared war on Christmas, that's why.

Via Blondesense, Miss Betty Bowers has helpful tips for dealing with anal-sex-loving baby-Bejus-hating liberals during the holi - I mean, Christmas season.

Have a blessed Christmas! Or else!