A friend wrote this followed by a link to an article by Dennis Prager on her Facebook:
Merry Christmas! It’s happened gradually, we inure ourselves to it but most of this commentary is true. It used to be all about Christmas. Still is for me.
This got some responses, the following two are what I primarily responded to (remember, these are her friends and family, so they are speaking more in a ribbing manner rather than a serious effe-u tone… but they are still challenges worthy of response):
- I call bullshit. I have yet to find the place that anyone on the left or otherwise has told someone they can’t say Merry Christmas! Or a school that doesn’t say the pledge. It’s all bullshit. B and in B, S as in S.
- Whaaaat? Who doesn’t like Christmas?? Never heard of such a thing from anyone I have ever known. It’s all bs. What will they come up with next?? Can hardly wait!!!!!!!!
There are many examples of this war. It started in the Soviet Union… And has crept into the New Left in watered down versions. Freedom From Atheism Foundation has filed many lawsuits (most activist atheists reside on the Left BTW).
I said two things here… I noted that most atheists reside on the Left, and I brought up FFRF’s lawsuits.
Here are two examples to bolster my statements, the first via THE BLAZE:
…The organization also released the results of a survey that it conducted among its members. That poll, commissioned online between June and December 2015, garnered 8,000 responses, finding that 96 percent respondents are registered to vote. It should be noted that the results are restricted to member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and may not be representative of atheists more broadly.
Secular members were asked to identify their political persuasion, with 29 percent selecting “Democratic” and 36 percent selecting “progressive/liberal.” While that totals 65 percent, 21 percent selected Independent. On the flip side, only 1 percent identified as Republicans, with 3 percent selecting “Socialist/Marxist” and 3 percent selecting “Green.”
An example of a lawsuit by changing it’s policy back is here (CONSERVAPEDIA – ATHEIST LAWSUITS):
For the seventh year in a row, the anti-religion activists at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) have erected an outrageous sign outside the Illinois state house denouncing Christmas and Christianity.
Dan Barker, FFRF co-president, said his group is opposed to the nativity scenes and other Christian symbols that appear on public spaces during the holiday season. So the atheist organization wants equal space to spread its anti-religion rhetoric during the Christmas season.
The Illinois state house grounds now feature an offensive red and green sign that reads, “At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
And the FFRF is not stopping at Illinois.
FFRF has announced plans to erect similar signs at the Texas and Florida state houses.
This isn’t the only attack to remove Christmas from the public view, either. Already this month the anti-religion organization put up a “Reasons Greetings” (an attack on the term Season’s Greetings) display at the Warren, Michigan city hall. The organization also recently announced a lawsuit that has banned the Concord Community Schools in Indiana from performing their traditional live nativity scene at the school’s 2015 Christmas Spectacular holiday concert.
And as an example of a change from “Happy Holidays” back to “Merry Christmas” is this (2006):
Wal-Mart has told its employees that it’s OK to once again greet shoppers by saying “Merry Christmas” this holiday season instead of the generic “Happy Holidays.”
CNN confirmed that Wal-Mart will announce Thursday that it plans to use the phrase “Merry Christmas” in products and around its stores this holiday season…..
HERE is another 2 examples within the past few years (2015 and 2018)
Santa Claus is banned. The Pledge of Allegiance is no longer recited. “Harvest festival” has replaced Thanksgiving, and “winter celebrations” substitute for Christmas parties.
New principal Eujin Jaela Kim has given PS 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a politically correct scrub-down, to the dismay of teachers and parents…..
An elementary school principal in Nebraska was placed on leave after telling teachers to avoid decorating their classrooms with Christmas-themed ornaments so as not to offend those who don’t celebrate the holiday.
[….]
Decorations that included Santa, Christmas trees, reindeer, green and red items and even candy canes, however, were not acceptable for the elementary school.
The candy canes, according to KETV, were prohibited because Sinclair deemed them to have religious significance. “Historically, the shape is a ‘J’ for Jesus. The red is for the blood of Christ, and the white is a symbol of his resurrection,” she reportedly wrote. “This would also include different colored candy canes.”….
These are not conservatives banning such things. And while many Democrats still celebrate Christmas, all of these “attacks” (political correctness) come either from Lefties or an adherence to a PC culture.
Two more examples before I go to bed. One comes from the Left-wing magazine Salon, where Chauncey Devega “states that the very idea that there is a deliberate effort to denigrate Christmas is a call for white supremacy,” quoting her via AMERICAN THINKER:
- There is another dimension to the ‘War on Christmas’ and the broader right-wing obsession with the culture wars. Both are examples of white identity politics and a deep desire (and effort) to maintain the cultural and political power of white right-wing Christians over all other groups. In many ways, the ‘War on Christmas’ is actually a proxy war for white supremacy.
And another example is when Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, while on Fox and Friends, opened up his greeting with, “Merry Christmas,” the Left went wild. here are two articles discussing this.
- Supreme Court Justice Says Two Words For Christmas And Liberals Lose Their Bloody Minds (WAYNE DUPREE)
- Justice Gorsuch Says ‘Merry Christmas’ During FOX Interview, Left Goes Nuts (LIFE SITE NEWS)
The point is is that these are people who either vote Democrat or in some cases are elected Democrat officials. No conservative I can think of demand a secession to “Merry Christmas,” or the “Pledge of Allegiance,” etc.
This was the story linked at Drudge (2012), via the DAILY NEWS:
SENIORS DECRY BAN ON CHRISTMAS TREE IN THEIR COMPLEX IN NEWHALL
Residents in a Newhall senior apartment complex are protesting an order from management to remove their beloved Christmas tree from the community room because, they were told, it’s a religious symbol.
On Tuesday, Tarzana-based JB Partners Group Inc. sent a memo to staff at The Willows senior apartment building demanding they take down Christmas trees and menorahs in communal areas.
The company has owned The Willows for four years, but this is the first time it’s given such a directive to staff.
On Wednesday, two dozen residents in the 75-resident complex gathered in the lobby to place a neon green sign that read: “Please Save Our Tree.” “We’re all angry. We want that tree,” said Fern Scheel, who has lived at the complex for nearly two years. “Where’s our freedom? This is ridiculous.”
The Willows staff and JB Property supervisor Wethanie Law declined to comment.
JB Partners Group owns apartments in California, Oklahoma and Colorado.
Resident Edna Johnson said Law had told her the tree had to be taken down because it’s a religious symbol.
“We could put out Easter baskets, have turkey for Thanksgiving but no tree for Christmas because it has Christ’s name in the beginning of Christmas,” Johnson said.
Frances Schaeffer, who is Jewish, said she doesn’t understand the property management company’s stance.
“This tree is a symbol of reverence that we can all enjoy regardless of our religious beliefs,” she said.
Max Greenis who has lived at the complex for a year with his wife, Bonnie, said he’s considering withholding his rent in protest of what he calls an abomination of the holiday tradition.
“I’ve got grandkids and they come here and now they’ll ask, `Grandpa, where’s the Christmas tree?’ Then I’ll have to explain that someone said we couldn’t have one. What kind of message is that sending to the kids?” Greenis asked.
After the protest – really more of a gathering over coffee and doughnuts to angrily air their concerns – some residents got so riled that they began taking the tree apart themselves. Some even took parts of the artificial tree back to their apartments in defiance.
“For some folks this is the only Christmas tree they’ll have all season,” resident Robert Troudeau said. “There are people overseas fighting for our freedoms and dying and we’re here fighting over things like this. It’s a shame.”
Some more PLEDGE examples by way of responding to one of the original challenges, even though I had a two-fer above:
And just like that, the Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees has eliminated the Pledge of Allegiance from all future meetings.
The reason?
The pledge is apparently “steeped in expressions of nativism and white nationalism.”
Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional, a federal court judge ruled today, saying that the pledge’s reference to “under God” violated school children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.”
The suit is the second by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, who has been trying for five years to remove the pledge from public classrooms.
The Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a party to the case, immediately announced that it would appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
(SFGATE)
…CNN reported how, two decades ago in 2000, atheist attorney Michael Newdow filed a lawsuit against Elk Grove Unified School District in California because academic officials were forcing students to listen to the words “under God” even if they were not reciting them, and so violating the First Amendment. The case made it to the Supreme Court in 2004 where it was dismissed for lack of standing
Five years later, in 2005, Newdow and several parents in the Sacramento, California, area filed a new lawsuit, seeking to remove the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. In March 2010, Newdow lost when the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the pledge did not represent a government endorsement of religion, prohibited by the Constitution
In 2013, the San Francisco Chronicle article, “Many schools skip Pledge of Allegiance,” reported: “Examples abound [in California] of schools that don’t include the pledge as part of the day or at some point in instruction.”
Earlier this year the Santa Barbara City College Board decided to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from its meetings because they believed the phrase “one nation under God” is “steeped in expressions of nativism and white nationalism.”…
(WND)