The Fight Over Public Xmas

By James Donahue

Dec. 2, 2005

We see some humor in the public announcement by pompous television evangelist Jerry Falwell that the Christians intend to fight this season to put down the growing assault on public decorations that mark the big commercial-religious event of the Yule.

Falwell has launched a “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign” and promises that his 24,000-member congregation will file suit against anyone that spreads misinformation about how the holiday can be celebrated in schools and public places.

Falwell also has joined the 150,000-member American Family Association in calling for a boycott of Target stores this season for banning the use of the words “Merry Christmas” in its stores.

Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, jumping into the fray, listed other retailers that he claims refuse to use the words “Merry Christmas” in store advertising. Store workers also are urged to say things like “happy holidays” instead of using the Xmas word.

And in Washington D.C. this week, House Speaker Dennis Hastert has launched a battle to call the large decorated spruce on the Capitol grounds a Christmas tree instead of a holiday tree.

“It’s a Christmas tree and that’s what it should be called,” Hastert said.

There is a good reason why there has been a growing assault on the Christmas holiday in America. What was once a small Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus has mushroomed into a two-month commercial-orchestrated shopping frenzy and gift exchange that has nothing to do with religion.

Christmas has become so important to American retailers that the success of the shopping season often is boom or bust for shopkeepers who mark the year’s profits or losses on sales made between Thanksgiving and New Year. Consequently shopping centers are decorated with Christmas images, loud speakers blast out Christmas music, people dressed like Santa Claus and news commentators are quick to give optimistic financial reports designed to encourage credit card spending by people that can hardly afford a next meal let alone further credit card debt.

From all of the glitter and eye candy, the decorated trees, lighted yards and public events that dramatize the month-long holiday season, it might be difficult to believe that some older living Americans can remember a time when some employers refused to allow workers time off on Christmas day.

What goes on in retail stores and comes across our television screens during December has become so repulsive, especially to those of us who totally reject this Christian hoax on humanity, that we regard this time of the year as a dark and ugly period, filled with negative energies. Notice that Christmas is traditionally a time of suicide.

As a news reporter, I recall covering some of the most tragic of events . . . fatal house fires, multi-car traffic accidents, train derailments and even plane crashes . . . going on in the midst of the drunken ungodly festivities.

I use the word “drunken” because I remember how my high school friends and I celebrated Christmas in our home town. On the day before Christmas we began visiting the back rooms of the stores in the downtown area. It was tradition in that mostly German and Polish area to offer alcoholic cheer to all who stopped by. We moved from store to store, and sometimes ended the night in a shopkeepers home, getting so drunk that many of us didn’t get home until we sobered up the next morning.

I am sure that little has changed in that town. I suspect it goes on in towns all over America. It is something that nobody talks about. It is a quiet thing that just happens as part of the holiday.

Yes we have moral reasons, as well as anti-religious reasons to want to rip “Christ” out of Christmas. If we had our way we would do away with the holiday altogether.

The Anti-Defamation League’s national director Abe Foxman recently criticized the religious right’s new campaign to “Christianize” America. Instead of toning down the displays of manger scenes and Christmas trees and lights, Christians are pressing to put them in every school and public government building.

This is why other groups are starting to draw some lines in the sand. They want to put a stop to the insanity associated with the holiday.

And lest we forget, not all Americans are Christians. We have people living here from all corners of the world. There are Jews, Buddhists, Moslems and Hindus, plus a lot of Gnostics that deny the deity of Jesus.

As Luciferians, we find the insanity extremely unpleasant. It is all angelically inspired and needs to be brought to closure as soon as possible.

In that sense, Falwell is correct when he says there is a war against Christmas. We Luciferians have so declared it. We support any person or organization that succeeds in blocking any of the craziness, no matter how small the victory or for whatever the reason. We dream of a day when we no longer must endure the dark bleak days of Xmas.