Liberty Counsel announced today that it is launching its Seventh Annual "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign." The campaign is designed to encourage government officials, schools and private businesses to explicitly recognize and publicly celebrate Christmas. A page on the group's website features two legal memos, one on public Christmas celebrations and the other on celebrating Christmas in the workplace. It also offers buttons and bumper stickers, sample ads, and links to Liberty Counsel's "Naughty & Nice List". That list names retailers who either celebrate Christmas or, on the other hand, merely use generic "holiday season" references. This year, the Christian Educators Association International is joining in the "Friend or Foe" campaign.
Monday, November 09, 2009
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Put me down as a foe to these bullies!
-American Atheist
It's amazing that some think of the general "Happy Holidays" as hostile to them because it doesn't specifically elevate their own holiday.
A rather telling excerpt from their brief regarding "Christmas in the Workplace".
"An employer’s mandate that employees only tell customers “Happy Holidays” will most likely collide with the sincerely held religious beliefs of many employees. After all, December 25 is a state and national holiday, and that holiday is called “Christmas.” It is not reasonable for an employer to mandate “Happy Holidays” when the state and national holiday is Christmas. Employers
would look foolish to tell employees to greet customers with “Happy 4th” on Memorial Day or Labor Day. Thus, employers should accommodate any employee who wants to greet customers with “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.” An employer would almost certainly not be able to justify banning its employees from saying “Merry Christmas” in the very month where we celebrate
Christmas. Our local, state and federal government offices are closed on December 25 (or the Friday before or the Monday after) for Christmas. Our retailers advertise “after Christmas” specials. What came before the “after Christmas” specials was Christmas. When private employers forbid employees from saying “Merry Christmas,” they violate the rights of the employees. "
I'm a friend to these great defenders of religious liberty
From Right Wing Watch:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/defending-christmas-fun-and-profit-mainly-profit
For a mere $25, Liberty Counsel will sell you its "Help Save Christmas Action Pack," which includes:
* "I Helped Save Christmas" button
* "I Helped Save Christmas" bumper sticker
* "I Love CHRISTmas"® button
* "I Love CHRISTmas"® bumper sticker
* Full-Page Christmas Ad to print in your local newspaper
* "The Memo that Saved Christmas" - two legal memoranda about Christmas in public and in the workplace.
Let's see: two buttons, two bumper stickers, two memos, and an ad ... for $25.
What a deal!
So this seems like a good time to dust off this post from a few years ago noting just how lucrative this annual event had become for right-wing groups:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/extremely-profitable-"war-christmas"
Basic math says the Liberty Counsel has pulled in an estimated $300,000+, the Alliance Defense Fund an estimated $500,000+, and the American Family Association an estimated $600,000+ from selling their “War on Christmas” wares.
-American Atheist
OK. If religionists want to start a Friend or Foe campaign then we ought to start a Friend or Foe battle as well. Our friends are well-adjusted, normal people, so they probably don't need any praise in this matter. But we do need to make it very obvious to our foes that they are our Foes. Anyone have any ideas on how to do this?
As a start on ideas for a Foe campaign, how about a drawing of a combination of an ugly Scrooge and the evil Gollum, hunched over some icon that represents Christmas, with his greedy words in a bubble that says "Christmas, it's mine, all mine!" At the bottom of the image in bigger font size would be the words
"Happy Holidays One and All!"
I'm shocked--shocked--to learn that taking a stand against the War on Christmas™ is a great get-penny for organizations of the religious right.
And what is it with these people, anyway? Why is it that, if it isn't all Christianity all the time, they feel that they're being persecuted or martyred or something? They must have been really spoiled kids, IMO.
*sigh* I have absolutely zero interest in either Christmas or a war on same.
Life is not binary!
How ironic that Liberty Counsel is anti-liberty of employers. The truth is that Liberty Counsel is an advocate of Christian Communism -- Christianity 24/7 everywhere, everybody. They ought to be put on the U.S. Terrorist Watch List for conspiracy to undermine the religious liberty of Americans.
Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. I REJOICE in that and gladly honor Him each season. How wonderful that many business do so too. I will honor them with my wealth.
Merry Christmas! HeHe
Merry Christmas to you too Anon.
-American Atheist
P.S. See? We don't really care one way or the other which just goes to show how this fake "war" on Christmas is meant only to take your money.
Dear AA
I do care very much in favor of saying Merry Christmas. I does matter.
Political correctness is like Nazism or socialism or liberalism. They cannot tolerate the concept that people are accountable to God and judged by natural law (religious faith). That is the hidden agenda of the PC censors.
I see this as a great crusade for academic and religious free speech... part of a much bigger battle. Make sure you are the side of liberty.
Dear Anon,
Thank you for the kind and respectful response.
I'll have to take your word for it that saying Merry Christmas matters very much to you (& Bill O'Reilly) but it doesn't matter to me. I'm perfectly happy to say Happy Holidays or Have A Nice Day too. The only time it chafes me is when one gives the impression they are trying to force some opinion off onto me like Bill O'Reilly's fake "war" on Christmas.
Other corrections. Liberalism is the opposite of Nazism. I'm not sure how Socialism fits in that spectrum. I have to disagree about being accountable to any God. I could go on with reasons but I'll settle for there not being any Gods so being accountable to something that doesn't exist makes no sense. I don't say this because I'm selfish or because I'm rebelling against some proper authority but because I've studied the subject and concluded there is nothing supernatural.
Lastly, I think I am more on the side of liberty than yourself (although I may be wrong). In trying to be respectful and accepting of people who may not follow your particular Christian religion I see myself as granting the maximum amount of liberty to my fellow Americans. By insisting your fellow citizens acknowledge your religion by saying Merry Christmas seems to me to be an attempt to be oppressive and therefore limiting one's liberty. Of course, most people say Merry Christmas with no forethought. Then the oppression conclusion no longer applies.
Best wishes,
-American Atheist
"I do care very much in favor of saying Merry Christmas. I does matter."
It might matter to you, but it does not matter to everyone. And it has nothing to do with "political correctness."
I am not Christian, and I am not accountable to either you or your god. Why, then, would you expect me to "celebrate" that which holds no meaning for me?
You want to be on the side of religious and academic freedom? Get off your pedestal and connect with -- and defend -- those who do not enslave themselves to your version of "faith." That, and only that, will put you on the side of liberty.
Some of the people here seem to be completely oblivious of what is at the bottom of this Friends or Foes campaign. They are like leafs floating on a water’s surface film, all the while blithely unaware of the deep and powerful river moving under them.
This campaign isn’t about a greeting, a holiday, a birthday, or money. It is instead a small battle in a much bigger war to get people to become more alienated from themselves.
Anti-abortionists come right out and say they are using a strategy of incrementalism, and that same strategy is being used here. Force people to say something, later force them not criticize, still later force them to show respect, and soon you have people believing something, with that believing then followed by their becoming the self of those beliefs.
A comment in another article mentions a “pile of feces,” and the person who wrote that feels at times that he is up to his neck in that pile. He thinks the pile came from outside him, but in fact it came from deep within him, from his failure to understand himself. For those who reach this ontological state and who are not very insightful and honest with themselves, many take two steps in the wrong direction: they Get Religion and they Blame Liberals. These two steps do numb some of the disgust and hate these people feel for themselves and the rest of their disgust and hate they direct at liberals, and so they think they are going in the right direction, the direction that is away from who they truly are.
These people are completely wrong in their understanding of themselves and of life, but they are at least aware of where the battle is taking place.
My suggestion for those who think this campaign is not a small battle in an important war is that they should look deeply into themselves, become more and more of the deeper self they see there, and after they have done this for a year or so come back and discuss with some personal knowledge what’s really going on.
There is a simple fix for the problem.... Historically the first Christmas was Dec 8, which is still celebrated by some Christians today.
Move Christmas to Dec 8 - revert Dec 25 to Winter Solstice as it's been for thousands of years.
Put Jesus, the manger, and anything religious based on Dec 8."Merry Christmas" -make that the official holiday.
On Dec 25 we celebrate an ancient festival (like a Fall Festival) called Winter Solstice, where we have a tree, Santa Clause, and Rudolf etc....
That keeps Christmas holy and people don't have to be politically correct at Solstice time.
The best way to SAVE Christmas is to move it.
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