Happy Holidays

Well, W already blogged about this, but it’s been in my face so much in the last week that I just have to say this myself. What’s with the war on “Happy Holidays”? I’ve written “happy holidays” on my Christmas letters for years simply because I was saying merry Christmas and happy New Year all at once. “Happy holidays” is not an anti-Christmas statement. Christmas is included in “holidays.” On the other hand, this “it’s CHRISTMAS damn it” thing strikes me as patently anti-Hanukkah, anti-Yuletide, anti- anything not Christian. It’s like no one’s permitted not to celebrate Christmas. Spooky.

I don’t have a problem with Christianity or Christians, per se, but lately there’s this huge push that goes with the neocon movement to shove religion down people’s throats and then claim religious persecution oneself when people dare to gag on it.

I’m sorry, but intelligent design is not science. It’s not even remotely science. People are certainly entitled to believe in it, if they wish, but they do not have the right to present it as science to other people’s children. People have the right to refuse to believe in evolution, but it is science, and so it gets taught in science class. No one’s out to get Christians, they’re just out to teach science—all science and only science in science classes in public schools.

The whole country does not have to be Christian in order for Christians to have religious freedom. People should go to their places of worship, teach what they want in their homes, believe what they wish, but kindly permit others to do the same without labeling other people's personal beliefs as religious persecution.

I know. This isn’t a particularly nice rant on Christmas Eve. I just read an editorial about the topic in the New York Times that set me off. I’m going to church tonight and my daughter’s singing in the choir. I have a wild idea. Let’s think about peace on earth and goodwill toward man, and stop judging everyone else’s happy holiday.