Holiday Paranoia from the Anti-God Politically Correct Far Left: Must be Christmas Season!

Posted on SuppressedNews.com 12/27/04

Just Say Merry Christmas
By Gary Palmer

Perhaps nothing exposes the gap between secular liberals and conservative Christians as much as Christmas. It may also help explain why the Democrat Party, which has been taken over by a small, but powerful cadre of secular liberals, is slipping into political oblivion.

Even though practically the whole country is adorned with Christmas decorations, all across America secular liberals are doing all that they can to suppress the public acknowledgment of Christmas. In Pasco County Florida, officials ordered all Christmas trees taken down. In a Seattle suburb in Bellevue, Washington, an atheist couple is demanding that the city remove a decorated tree even though it is not called a "Christmas tree" because they find it offensive.

In other places around the nation the secular thought police have been keeping a list and checking it twice to make sure that little children in our public schools check their faith at the school door. For instance, in Plano, Texas local school officials caught a 3rd grader handing out candy canes with a politically incorrect message attached explaining its historical religious symbolism.

Last year in Portland, Oregon, a teacher caught little Justin Cortez, a kindergartener, red-handed with Christmas cards that had "Jesus" on them. The teacher confiscated the contraband cards and handed them over to the principle who sent them to the proper authorities, otherwise known as the superintendent.

And up north in West Bend, Wisconsin, the school district announced that students could not distribute any religious Christmas cards. Down south, when residents of Mustang, Oklahoma found out that the local elementary school had expelled Christian symbols from its Christmas program voters got even by voting down an $11 million bond issue that would have funded the construction of a new elementary school.

As you can see from these stories, anti-Christmas bigotry is being imposed from the Left Coast to the East Coast, from the North to all the way down to the South.

Even though 80 percent of Americans say they are Christians, liberals continue to exhibit a total inability to articulate a message that connects with the faith of most Americans. When liberals attempt to speak about religion and faith, it usually comes across as insincere and more liberal spin promoting their own social or cultural agenda even when they are talking about Christmas.

For instance, Al Gore's 1997 Christmas message smacked of class envy and political manipulation when he said, "Two thousand years ago a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child." A couple of years later Hillary Clinton also described Christmas as the day Christians celebrate the "birth of a homeless child."

Other liberals have described both Mary and Joseph as unemployed and homeless. The fact is, Joseph was not unemployed and they were not homeless; they were in Bethlehem because an intrusive government ordered them there for a census.

Whether it is totally justified or not, and there are millions of rank and file Democrats that have strong religious and moral values, a growing majority of voters blame the Democrats for the war against religious expression because the Party is being run by hard core liberals. These voters are part of a faith and family grassroots coalition that grows larger by the day because millions of American Christians, including a growing number of Democrats, are fed up with politically correct bureaucrats and unelected federal judges that mock their faith and trample on their rights.

If the Democrats want to change the public's perception and be a national party again, they should heed the advice of one of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, and call for an end to the war against religious expression in America. Noonan points out what more and more voters have concluded that it is not "…conservatives that are scrubbing America of Christmas, they think its liberals; and they don't think it's Republicans, they think it's Democrats."

The Democratic Party should join the majority of Americans that condemn left-wing extremists who confiscate Christmas cards and candy canes from kindergartners and third graders in violation of these children's rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The leadership of the Democratic Party should also condemn such intolerance and as Ms. Noonan wrote, "…announce that the Democratic Party is on the side of those that want religion in the public square."

Democrats should learn from the Ghost of Elections Past and avoid the gloom that the Ghost of Elections Future foretells by heeding Noonan's advice and loudly affirming that the Constitution protects the freedom of religion and that there is nothing wrong with acknowledging our Judeo-Christian heritage or the Ten Commandments or Christmas. Hillary Clinton and other Democrat leaders should then stand up straight and tall, as Scrooge did, and promise to honor Christmas in their hearts all year round and then wish everyone a "Merry Christmas". It would at least be a start toward connecting with the faith and values of the people that have decided the outcome of the last two elections.

Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.