The War on Christmas

[Greg C.]

Here's something that gets my blood boiling.
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Christmas controversy refers to publicized controversy surrounding public acknowledgment or celebration of the Christmas holiday in media, advertising, government, and various secular environments. Modern-day controversy usually occurs due to the holiday's large annual role in Western economy in conjunction with its applied connotations with a specific religion, Christianity. The term "War on Christmas" is often used to address recent controversy.

In present-day Western society, it is often suggested that during the months leading up to December 25, public, corporate, and government mention of the actual term "Christmas" is being strenuously avoided and replaced with a generic term — usually "holiday" or "winter" — and that popular non-religious aspects of Christmas such as Santa Claus, secular Christmas carols, and decorated pine trees are still being prominently showcased and recognized, but are shown as being associated with non-specified "holidays", rather than with Christmas.Supporters of this effort often claim that the goal of this altered presentation is to be politically correct and to avoid possibly causing unintentional offense to non-Christians by associating these festivities and traditions with the term "Christmas". However, since 96 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas and 14 percent of them are non-Christian, opponents feel that this presentation is actually a concerted effort to cleanse any connotations with Christianity or Jesus (by avoiding the term "Christmas"), while simultaneously attempting to relate to celebrants of Christmas to secure the huge monetary profit associated with Christmas gift purchasing (by showcasing secular Christmas traditions).

In past centuries, Christmas-related controversy was mainly restricted to concerns of a public focus on secular Christmas themes such as Santa Claus and gift giving rather than what was glorified as the "reason for the season"—the birth of Jesus. A symbolic issue from these past controversies was usage of the term "Xmas", which many allege is a conscious attempt at removing the term "Christ" from Christmas. The abbreviation originated from the use of the Greek letter chi, ×, as an abbreviation of Christ (×ñéóôüò).

[Greg C.]

Present-day controversy
Since 1999, various people of differing backgrounds and positions have been claiming that there is an ongoing censorship, or "war" on the term `Christmas`, and on the celebration of the holiday itself in public Western society, particularly in the United States. Contrary to popular belief, those campaigning against the "censorship" of Christmas not only include Christians, but include atheists, Muslims, and Jews. Many of these people claim that there is a concerted effort to remove any mention of Christmas in public advertising, government, public schools, as well as in general conversation with strangers at Christmastime. Some also claim that this "war" also extends to Easter and Good Friday, where euphemisms are sometimes used to avoid mentioning these holidays by name.

[Greg C.]

Government-related controversyAlthough Christmas Day is officially designated as December's only federal holiday by the United States government, there are many who claim that government-funded displays of Christmas imagery and traditions violate the U.S. constitution, and defy separation of church and state. The battle over whether such displays and traditions should be displayed and celebrated within public schools, courthouses and other government buildings, has become very heated in recent years.

A heated controversy of such relation arose in 2002, when the New York City public school system banned the display of nativity scenes, but allowed religious symbols of Hanukkah and Ramadan to be displayed. Defenders of the policy justified it in claiming that the symbols in question, the Hanukkah menorah and Muslim Star and crescent, were cultural, but that the nativity scene was religious, thus not allowed. Such a policy angered many, including commentator Bill O'Reilly, who in 2006 was noted as saying that such a policy was "anti-Christian".

[Greg C.]

'Holiday tree' controversies
Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, there have been several instances in the U.S. and Canada where official public mention and reference to a Christmas tree has been renamed to "holiday tree" for various reasons, mostly for enforcement of separation of church and state or applications of political correctness. Many were outraged at these renamings, while others supported them as being inclusive, or as being factually correct because of claims that Christmas trees have pagan origins.

One of the bigger holiday tree controversies came in 2005, when the city of Boston, United States, called their official decorated tree a holiday tree, and the subsequent response from the Nova Scotian tree farmer who donated the tree was that he would rather have put the tree in a wood chipper than have it named a "holiday" tree. Donnie Hatt, the donor, was also quoted as saying "Ever since I was born, a tree was put up for Christmas, not for holidays, because if you're going to do that you might as well put a tree up for Easter".

Another 2005 controversial instance was with American hardware giant Lowe's, and their signs that said "holiday trees" in English, but read árboles de Navidad (Christmas trees) in Spanish rather than árboles de feriados. Some claim that this proves that political correctness is solely a phenomenon of the English language. In 2007, Lowe's started using the term "family tree", sparking protest from the American Family Association, but they have since claimed that this term was only a printing mistake.

[neferetus]

Throughout history, whenever a nation has turned its back on God, God has turned his back on it.

[Greg C.]

neferetus said:

Throughout history, whenever a nation has turned its back on God, God has turned his back on it.

Kinda describes the U.S of A. in 2007...

[Bromhead24]

Nowhere in the first ammendment does it say anything about seperation of church and state.
But some how the democrats and the loony left like to make things up and the national media
supports them.