Oh come all ye Religious Right fund-raisers

November 3, 2007

Guest Post by Morbo

Now that you’ve finished off the last of the Halloween candy, it’s time to get ready for this year’s “War on Christmas.”

That’s right — the Religious Right is already cranking up this nonsense. It does not matter that there is no “War on Christmas.” The very phrase has become such a powerful fund-raising tool for Religious Right legal groups that the “war” must be made to exist. Hence on Oct. 30, the Liberty Counsel, a far-right legal outfit founded by the late Jerry Falwell, sent out an alert vowing to protect Christmas.

Here’s how desperate these groups have become: They spent much of last year’s holiday season whining about the decorations and types of greetings used by clerks in stores. Liberty Counsel actually issued a “Naughty and Nice” list. A store that put the word “Christmas” in its ads was nice. One that used “Happy Holidays” was naughty. Stores deemed “naughty” were threatened with boycotts.

Groups like the Liberty Counsel exist to weaken the wall of separation between church and state. When it comes to retailers, they might have the church (if you define the term liberally to mean anything that touches on religion) but there’s no state. These stores are not an arm of the government. In other words, for all of their huffing and puffing, there is not a thing these legal groups can do in court about the decorations down at the mall. Yet they will not shut up, and they continue to raise money from suckers.

Furthermore, the very fact that they have to whine about something this picayune — the type of greeting used by temporary help at K-Mart — is a sign that the right-wing legal machine has phonied up the whole “war” thing. Isn’t there some nut with a giant nativity scene out there somewhere who yearns to put it in a public park?

There probably is — and he’s got the thing in the park. The Supreme Court said that was OK a long time ago, as long as the nut uses his own money and resources to display the symbol and other folks are given an equal chance to put theirs up later.

So there’s really not a lot for these groups to do in this “war” other than complain about the decorations at the Best Buy and scream bloody murder every time a public school teacher decides the kids should sing “Jingle Bells” instead of “Silent Night.”

The “War on Christmas” is a crock. Yet somehow, the Religious Right manages to raise millions fighting it every year. It truly has become the gift that keeps on giving — all year long.

[Editor’s Note: I just wanted to add that this absurd phenomenon is already in full force. WorldNetDaily, a right-wing “news” site, recently started selling “Christmas-defense kits,” with resources that will help people “fight back.” Among the materials is a bumper-sticker that reads, “This is America! And I’m going to say it: Merry Christmas!”]

“They’re guaranteed to ward off the evil spirits of the ACLU grinches.”

Actual quote. Not very Christ-like, is it?

  • Remember when some folks would complain that Christmas was becoming too commercialized? Now these nutcases want to make sure that retailers associate Christmas as closely as possible with their garish decorations and annoying Muzak.

    Don’t forget – all the excesses of December (and November) are about Jesus’ birthday. It has nothing to do with the pagan celebration of Yule, or the winter solstice, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa.

    Morbo is right. the War on Christmas is all about raising money from the sheep.

  • i heard my first christmas song at a local store this morning.
    it’s not christmas i dislike. it’s christmas music (if you can call it that!)

  • i heard my first christmas song at a local store this morning.

    You’re lucky to have made it this long, I actually heard christmas music and saw christmas decorations for sale immediately after labor day.

  • Martin @ 11:25 am said:

    You’re lucky to have made it this long, I actually heard christmas music and saw christmas decorations for sale immediately after labor day

    A good indication that retailers know they’re in desperate straits in spite of the feel-good economic nonsense we hear on the TeeVee news. I think the marketing departments of the retail giants are smart enough to know that there won’t be as much money spent on the holidays this season as in years past and their strategy is to be the first one to milk the cow before it runs dry.

  • #s 4 & 5,

    It is necessary to stretch the “Holiday Season” for as long as possible, especially this year. With the housing bubble splattered all over the place and with the prices of gas steadily climbing, people are spending less and less on Christmas (and everything else they don’t *have to* have). The consumer index is dreadful. Consequently, firms are posting lower-than-expected profits. So, where are the CEOs of those firms going to get their Christmas bonuses from? Spare a thought (and a dime) for those poor, poor, CEOs…

  • Wednesday, October 31, 2007
    Florida Catholic Keeping Christ in Christmas

    BOCA RATON Two neighbors here have spent most of the year launching a
    nationwide “Keep Christ in Christmas” campaign to spread the word with car
    magnets.
    The plan began in October 2006, when Ron Hollander happened to chat with
    neighbor Kay Mansolill, who was out in her driveway picking up the morning
    newspaper.
    “We began to talk about all the non-Christian aspects of the approaching
    Christmas season, things we both had seen on TV or read in the papers —
    teachers not allowed to wear earrings that relate to Christmas, no
    Christmas trees and such in public schools, school bus drivers not allowed
    to play their portable radios because maybe a Christmas hymn might come on
    and the kids would hear it,” Hollander said.
    “Why don’t we do something about it?” Mansolill said to Hollander that
    morning at 6.
    “First we thought that we should do something right here in Boca Raton and
    the rest of Florida. Then we decided let’s do something nationwide
    involving all Christian churches,” she recalled.
    Hollander, 65, a retired food manager and member of Our Lady of Lourdes
    Parish, and Mansolill, a retiree in her 70s who belongs to St. Jude
    Parish, went to work. In February, they formed a committee and Hollander
    got busy with research.
    “I learned that we could order car magnets from China, but we would have
    to buy a minimum of 10,000 and pay up front. … We (did) not have the
    kind of money it would take to do this.”
    Hollander stumbled upon a firm in Pompano, Creative Advertising, that
    could have the magnets made in the Midwest and let purchasers pay directly
    to Creative Advertising, with no money going to Hollander and his
    committee.
    Creative Advertising sells the magnets in bulk to parishes and other
    organizations for $1,300 per batch of 1,000, not at an individual or
    retail level.
    Dennis Throm, a sales representative there, said the sales level has been
    in the hundreds and thousands per order, paid for at parish and diocesan
    level.
    “We don’t make much money on this,” he said, “so we give the bulk
    purchasers a break on the price.
    “We very much believe in the concept and the importance of Christmas being
    Christ-centered.”
    The committee’s role is to promote the sale of the magnets — which are
    oval-shaped and bear the words “Keep Christ in Christmas” and a silhouette
    of the Christ Child in the manger — through mailings to churches.
    Hollander said the committee has sent out more than 2,000 packets
    promoting the idea with a brochure including a photo of the car magnet and
    instructions on how to order.
    He and his committee first targeted Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist,
    Episcopal, Baptist and churches of other denominations in the Southeast.
    They have since blanketed Catholic dioceses in the entire country, plus
    all Lutheran districts and all Episcopal dioceses.
    “We are trying to unite all the Christian churches in a common cause,”
    Hollander told the Florida Catholic. “Not only do we need to keep Christ
    in Christmas, we need to bring him back to public places where he has been
    expelled in the name of holiday commercialism. It occurred to me that we
    should not be fighting back, we should be forging ahead.”
    Naturally, he and Mansolill sent letters and packets to all the parishes
    in the Diocese of Palm Beach.
    “We have already sold 12,000 magnets by way of responses to our mailings
    or by direct contact from Catholic and non-Catholic churches,” Hollander
    said.
    Here are some examples of the sales:
    • 5,000 were bought by the Archdiocese of Miami, with distribution handled
    by Joan Crown, of the archdiocesan Respect Life Committee.
    • 2,000 were acquired by St. Rita Parish in Wellington.
    • 1,000 went to the First United Methodist Church in Coral Springs, the
    first of all the recipients to order them.
    • 600 were ordered by the Lutheran Ministries in Christ in Coral Springs.
    “We bought 1,000 of them,” said Brian Rivera about the purchase made by
    the Knights of Columbus Council 11241 of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in
    Boca Raton.
    “Our council is fortunate because this man is taking this upon himself
    just simply to promote Christ in Christmas,” he said about Hollander, a
    fellow Knight in the council. The national Knights of Columbus has its own
    “Keep Christ in Christmas” magnets that various councils around the
    country are selling as fundraisers for charities they support.
    The Rev. Dennis Glick, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Boca Raton,
    also came on board with an order of a few thousand magnets. He is
    distributing them through his school, which has 500 students.
    “To me the whole thing about the commercializing of Christmas is a farce,”
    Rev. Glick said. “How can you not have Christ in Christmas? Christmas is
    Christ.”
    To learn more about the Keep Christ in Christmas magnets, write to
    linandron@comcast.net

    to view magnet go to my blog: http://www.keepchristinchristmas.blogspot.com

  • Why are they “fighting back” for people who want to celebrate Christmas without putting Christ into it. No one said they couldn’t but do the feel they need to force everyone else to do it. Isn’t that forcing their beliefs on others. “Fighting Back” sounds more like “forcing others”. If people choose not to put Christ in the Christmas season they should not be punished for it or forced to do it by others.

    To many it’s a time of Santa and his elves not Jesus and his apostles, a time of caring and sharing not religious domination. To many it is the season to be jolly not holy. Religious tolerance also means tolerance of those who aren’t religious. I would just as soon see all that money and effort to fight this “fictitious war on Christmas” go to making sure the poor and sick had food, shelter and clothing and their kids a few toys. Some view it as a time to push their religious beliefs on others. Merchants really don’t care as long as your spending money.

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