Unleashing the Yuletide Blogs of War

Halloween is a full month away. Thanksgiving is two months nigh. Therefore, it is obviously time to start thinking about Christmas. Not an easy topic, considering the War on Christmas that has waged, lo, these many years thanks to the paranoid imaginations of the Right Wing's stable of jackasses. Like clockwork, each of them starts braying about the so-called liberal war on Christmas right around this time of year.

The "War on Christmas" is, of course, part-and-parcel of the Right Wing's attempt to tar any moderate, progressive, and/or non-Christian American as anti-Republican and anti-Christian, in that order. A recent Miller Lite beer commercial featuring the image of leather-clad homosexuals from San Francisco's Folsom St. Festival posing in a risqué parody of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper got Bill Donahue and the Catholic League angry enough to put down their beers and complain.

Right-wing radio "shock jock" Erich "Mancow" Mueller weighed in on the subject earlier this week on (where else?) FOX "News" during a panel discussion (or mob denunciation) of the ad. Briefly interrupting Mueller's attempt to channel Tom Arnold, host Andrew Napolitano made the comment that the Left "has always disliked the concept of Christianity." Actually, it's not the "concept" of Christianity that most thinking people object to, so much as how self-righteous Right Wing gasbags insist on shoving it down everyone's throats. You know, just like Jesus Himself did.



How un-American and petty. This obsession is so all-consuming on the Right that there is even an entire blog devoted to this non-issue. The blog masthead states that, "The war on Christmas can only be confronted if Americans are aware of its existents (emphasis added)." I'm not aware of the "existents" of anything, actually, but I think I understand what he's saying. Namely, the war on Christmas can only be confronted if Right Wing lunatics and hate-mongers can actually convince enough Americans that this pile of contrived tripe actually exists. Or extents. Whatever. Honestly, name one Christian household whose worship of Jesus Christ and celebration of Christmas is sullied in any way by the fact that America is in fact home to people who worship different religions? As for myself, I'm looking forward to another joyful Chrismukkah or Hanumas Season.

This is all so pointless and hateful. As I've commented on an earlier post, to paraphrase Gerald Ford, if Jesus Christ was alive today, he'd be spinning in his grave. Or, as Erich "Mancow" himself asks during his appearance on FOX, "Why... Jesus Christ. Why?" I couldn't have said it any better myself. Happy Holidays.

- Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

The Beatles: Christmastime Is Here Again


The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right: War On Christmas

The Ugly Fox News "War on Christmas" (JewsOnFirst.org, 12/13/2005)

The Daily Show's Stewart responds to O'Reilly's misleading attack (MediaMatters.org, 12/8/2005)

O'Reilly: "War" on Christmas part of "secular progressive agenda" that includes "legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage" (MediaMatters.org, 11/21/2005)

ALL ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE- Pagan origins, Christian adaptation, & secular status (ReligiousTolerance.org)

CHRISTMAS WARS ESCALATE: CHRISTIANS FIGHT BACK (CatholicLeague.org)

JesusCreed.org

Fox News Watch panelist Gabler: Fox News "pumping" Christmas "war" (MediaMatters.org, 12/5/2005)

Have a Merry Christmas... Or Else! (SecularLeft.us, 12/1/2005)