Imagine if the ACLU filed lawsuits nationwide to remove all references to Martin Luther King on Martin Luther King day. The reason is that not everyone agrees that King's legacy was a positive one, and that the main beneficiaries of King's activism have been African Americans and other minorities. Southern segregationists, in particular, feel excluded from King's "beloved community." So in the name of diversity and tolerance all monuments and symbols and references to King should be erased. Instead Martin Luther King day becomes another "happy holiday."
This would be crazy. The answer to the ACLU would go something like this: "We are honoring King because we believe he has changed our civilization and our world vastly for the better. If you don't agree, by all means write a letter to the editor. But it is intolerance bordering on bigotry for institutions to get rid of all references to King simply because some people don't like him or feel excluded by his vision."
The same argument applies to Christ and Christmas.
Indeed, I have never bought into the argument that Christmas needs to become "more diverse and more inclusive". Christmas is not only a religious holiday, it is a Christian one. Christ's Mass celebrates the birth of Jesus and the reason for the Christian faith.
In the same spirit that Chanukah is a Jewish holiday, and Rammadan is a Muslim Holiday, and Kwanza is a made up holiday for blacks, Christmas is a primarily Christian holiday. If you wish to celebrate it with us, great...wonderful. Join in. We will include anyone who wants to celebrate the birth of Christ with us. But when foolish athiests demand that we make no reference to Christ on CHRISTmas, something's going horribly wrong.
Secularists can of course celebrate Christmas secularly. But to demand that everyone else does too is, as Mr. D'Souza puts it, rampant bigotry.
1 comment:
Nice post, good logic. Thanks for your courage.
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