FOX News commentator Bill O'Reilly has been a driving force behind publicizing the "War on Christmas" over the past several years, calling out retailers who wish customers "Happy Holidays" and pummeling the ACLU for bringing lawsuits objecting to religious holiday displays in public places. But this year, according to his Dec. 12 "Talking Points Memo," the War on Christmas is over, and his side has emerged victorious.
Calling the war "one of the most important things we've done" on his show, O'Reilly blasted "SPs," or "secular progressives" for their loss, saying that the ACLU is backing off of lawsuits this year, and fewer retailers are falling into the "Happy Holidays" trap. "The Taliban-like oppression of the holiday has largely ceased," O'Reilly said.
It seems John Lennon was right, war is over - if you want it. Or, as O'Reilly puts it, "We won. The secular progressives lost. Good."
Click here to watch the video of O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo.
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There is a sad side to all of this “War on Christmas” zealotry. Every year we go through this, and it seems to bring out the worst in Christians. However, this year just takes the cake. How unfortunate that, at a time when Christians are supposed to be celebrating the birth of a man who taught us to love one another, that we would all be welcomed at His Father’s table, and who believed that, “as you have done to the least of these, so you have done to me,” so many Christians suddenly become howling, enraged zealots who are even less tolerant than the “Islamo-fascists” (if that’s even a real word) that they hate so passionately.
I’m reading article after article in this “December Dilemma" thread, and each one saddens me a little more.
Not far from where I live, in Olean, NY, a public Wiccan Pentacle was vandalized. For the link to the article, please go to http://www.oleantimesherald.com/articles/2007/12/10/news/doc475d3a4dba9a1001196888.txt
This is what Bill O’Reilley’s proclaimed “War on Christmas” has created: Christian zealotry to the point of angrily defacing the symbols of other faiths. When angry groups deface Synagogues or other religious symbols any other time of the year, it’s called a hate crime. Yet, because it’s Christmas (and Bill O’Reilly said so) we’re in the middle of a “War,” so it’s not really hate, it’s just “defending your faith!”
Defending your faith from what, one might ask? Most Jews/ Muslims/ Pagans/ Bahá'í/ Jains/ Hindus/ Etc. don’t really care if someone wishes them a “Merry Christmas.” Not one person that I’ve ever spoken to from a “minority faith” has ever felt that the average person who says “Merry Christmas” is trying to convert them. (The folks who knock on your door at 9:00 am on a Saturday, however, are trying to convert them.) For the last several years, I’ve just picked a holiday at random and started wishing people whatever it may be. Most people understand the humor, and not ONCE has anybody expressed offense.
Why can’t we follow Beliefnet contributor Rabbi Brad Hirschfield’s advice: “You Don't Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right.” He stresses “Faith without Fanaticism.” Before the fanatical start screaming about how everybody in America NEEDS to be wishing everyone else a Merry Christmas OR ELSE, perhaps they might do better to pause and remember what Jesus was teaching in the first place. Jesus taught love. Why can’t we?
I don't think this issue affects people as much as the ratings-hungry dispensers of wisdom would have you believe.
It's fun to fight, debate, blog, and bloviate. But most people just do what they want, because they can.
That is the beauty of our country.
This issue is a waste of bandwidth.