John Gibson will tolerate non-Christians — as long as they ‘behave’

I’m curious as to what religion Gibson claims to be other than the all-encompassing (and misnomer of) Christian? Is he methodist, lutheran, catholic, evangelical???

“What kind of “trouble” would this Fox News personality suggest Christians cause? ”

If he believes what he’s saying, I don’t think the word he’s looking for is “trouble”. However, he might offer a “solution”.

I note that O Reilly managed to be wrong about nearly everything surrounding this issue.

First, he said “George Soros and secularists” were behind it, when there is no evidence of the former.

Second, he said Jews and Muslims have played a role, when again there is no evidence of the former.

Third, he said Jews were 3% of the population, when 1.7% is the latest number; and that Muslims were 1% when 2% is more accurate.

All this aside, I can understand how a month of Jingle Bells would bug me if I were Jewish or secularist.

But in the meantime, as long as they’re civil and behave, we tolerate the presence of other religions around us without causing trouble, and I think most Americans are fine with that tradition.

Translation: If they are good little boys and girls who do what they are told, then there won’t be any problems.

This is nothing more than a veiled threat. As such. it shows a lack of civility on his part. His hypocrisy is breath taking.

As best I can tell, Merry Christmas launched a pre-emptive strike on Happy Holidays because the available intel led some to conclude that Merry Christmas was in danger.

Where does it all end? Will July 4th invade Thanksgiving?

Let the calendar inspectors finish their job!

Comments like Gibson make me wanna kill someone. I have to behave and be tolerated?? Kiss my butt, you pig.

And Jack, you’re missing the point. I live in NY. And if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, I don’t take offense. But what O’Reilly has indeed said – and Dobson and others – is that tolerance should only be a one-direction thing, that everyone else should have to tolerate their right to be completely intolerant. What rot. What nonsense.

Why should you be OFFENDED by someone saying, “Happy Holidays”? Particularly to a stranger, who you do not know, who could celebrate Christmas, Hannukkah, Kwanzaa, or none of them and just the New Year? It’s about having respect and being polite to other people. You’re correct – nobody has to get upset because someone says Merry Christmas to you – but do you not share a similar obligation to be as open as possible too? What’s so offensive about Happy Holidays that instead makes you want to wield the phrase “Merry Christmas” as a cudgel?

I really could care less about the Christians point here, I am not Christian. I do care that, under the guise of inclusiveness, it’s become okay for the name of one of those holidays to fall–with a few official pushes–by the wayside. When someone points this out, there’s a cry about the very inclusiveness that’s being implicitly denied.

Baloney! What we seem to have found out despite all this witch-hunting by the right-wing tools is that essentially, companies have nothing in place and are basically either A) confused or B) trying to appeal to everyone for the simple reason that THEY WANT YOUR MONEY.

The USPS has a postage stamp, named and official for Kwanzaa and Chanukah(and Eid, I think) but where there should be one called a Christmas stamp they instead use ‘Madonna and Child'(yes, some Christians might like the imagery, but it is not imagery that is the problem). Alone among the seasons holidays, Christmas goes unnamed.

Well, you’re WRONG, ENTIRELY WRONG. If you click on the Madonna & Child stamp, at the top of the stamp – yes, on the stamp – it says … CHRISTMAS!! So what kind of stamp is that again? Oh, yeah. A Christmas stamp. Does the fact that on the Web site it isn’t specifically named as a “Christmas traditional” stamp offend you? I mean, because then you’re slicing the cake really, really, really thin here. Almost as thin as your skin.

And then there’s the stamps that have pics of cookies of Santa and angels. And Hannukah. And Kwanzaa in addition.

(I’ll agree on holiday trees. Just call ’em Christmas trees. Whatever.)

Nice try, Dave.

I never said anyone should be offended by someone saying Happy Holidays. What I’m saying is that you–like others feel that saying Happy Holidays is preferable to running the risk that you will some how offendsomeone by saying Happy Chanukah. You feel that the bland generic greeting is preferable to the possibility that your well wishes might offend. And the idea that ANY well-wishes might offend strikes me as a defect with the offendee. Particularly when the offended person KNOWS that the phrase is meant as a pleasantry.

Ask youself how offering someone your traditional greeting of the season, something that is known to be a ‘tiding of joy’ can be taken as impolite or disrespectful?

Why should all of our traditions be pushed under a bland generic blanket? Why can we not revel in the divesre ways in which our various cultures celebrate this season? Why is diversity good all the rest of the time, but not now?

And I had to laugh as you crowed that I was WRONG. WRONG! While admitting that the stamp is NOT called a Christmas stamp on the site–as the other holidays stamps are. It is precisely that slight that I am talking about. The very stamp SAYS ‘Christmas’ on it, yet they do not label it as such. Why? It SAYS Christmas on it? Who could be more offended? Would labelling it the Christmas stamp add that much more offense? Don’t you see? You can have all the trappings, all the holly and Santa and Mary and Baby Jesus you want–but we’re not calling it Christmas. That’s what’s driving the Christians nuts.

May the Chanukah lights bring joy to your soul as you celebrate your holidays this season

Oy.

Why should all of our traditions be pushed under a bland generic blanket? Why can we not revel in the divesre ways in which our various cultures celebrate this season? Why is diversity good all the rest of the time, but not now?

Why is it you can’t understand the notion that perhaps not making a presumption, and instead simply wishing someone Happy Holidays, is not a bad thing? Our traditions don’t need to be pushed under a bland generic blanket — if you had a Christmas party at your home and called everything the December tree or some such thing, or dumped Santa completely in favor of, I don’t know, a big skinny guy with a surfboard called “Mr. Present-Bearer Dude” then I’d think you have a point.

But you’re taking what is essentially a pleasantry that you’re saying in times of good cheer to people you don’t know and making that equivalent to reducing the entire culture into something bland. That’s nonsense!

What I’m saying is that you–like others feel that saying Happy Holidays is preferable to running the risk that you will some how offendsomeone by saying Happy Chanukah.

In New York about 10% of us are Jews. The rest are not. I’m not going to say Happy Hannukah to all of them, because I know the chance is that they don’t celebrate it. Do I think they’d be offended? Not really. Does that mean I can’t then simply say Happy Holidays? What’s wrong with that? It recognizes every culture in a brief way. Period.

And I had to laugh as you crowed that I was WRONG. WRONG! While admitting that the stamp is NOT called a Christmas stamp on the site–as the other holidays stamps are. It is precisely that slight that I am talking about.

Dude, you’re still missing the point. You’re allowing yourself to be slighted by essentially the short-hand the USPS is using for the product name when you order it over the Web. When your credit card statement comes and it just says the word “Stamps,” will you be offended then? The stamp is called “Madonna and Child.” And unless there’s a picture of the singer of such hits as “Holiday” and “Lucky Star” on it with her darling daughter, it’s not a secret just what we’re talking about here — it refers to one holiday, one religion, Christianity. I’d also put forth the idea that because there are stamps above it that are also related to Christmas, maybe instead of naming it Christmas 1, Christmas 2, and Christmas 3, they named it “Cookies,” “Ornaments,” and “Madonna and Child” to distinguish them. Whereas with Hannukah there’s one stamp. If there were two and they were instead named, Driedel and Latkes, I wouldn’t be screaming that it doesn’t say Hanukkah. I can read between the lines a little. If the stamp was called, “Some woman and a baby painted by some, er, European dude who died like 500 years ago” I’d be with you on this.

Would labelling it the Christmas stamp add that much more offense? Don’t you see? You can have all the trappings, all the holly and Santa and Mary and Baby Jesus you want–but we’re not calling it Christmas. That’s what’s driving the Christians nuts.

I mean, essentially you’re arguing over the shorthand name of a product being sold on the web that says Christmas directly on the stamp. On it! And that’s still somehow offensive to you? What’s driving the Christians nuts — and it’s not even “the Christians,” but Bill O’Reilly, the idiot who runs the Catholic League, John Gibson and a few others, plus some people who post on blogs, is that they’re kings of persecution complexes.

And instead of this being the month of the year where people actually kind of try to be a little nice to each other, it’ll be the opposite, because I know, I just know I’m going to reach the day soon when someone yells at me for wishing them a Happy Holiday. That’ll feel great.

Quite the contrary, they revel in the commercialization. Go take a look at this post from Political Animal and be amazed.

Start with the stamps.

I guess you don’t get it. ALL the stamps, with the exception of the Chanukah and Kwanzaa ones are Christmas stamps. Santas, Christmas cookies, Christmas ornaments. All kinds of Christmas stuff. Except one. Christmas. They’re ‘holiday’ ornaments, and ‘holiday’ cookies, and the Madonna and Child stamp is–and this is just bizarre–‘holiday’ traditional. When you name some, the omission of others–particularly while you inundate us with the symbols–is odd, to say the least.

We all know that these are not generic holiday symbols–any of them. When was the last time you recall that the Muslims all put on their yarmulkes, and then caroled their way down the street to light the Ujima candle on the Kwanzaa Yule log?

There is no ‘Holiday Season’. There are a number of holidays, mostly grounded in religion, that take place at around the same time each year. Each is seperate and distinct. Each has it’s own symbols, traditions, and practices.

If I wish someone a ‘Happy Solstice’ or a ‘Good Yule’, and they return with a ‘Happy Chanukah’ or even ‘Merry Christmas’, we have not diresepected each other. We’ve LEARNED something about each other. And who knows, next year I might, should I see that person again greet the with a ‘Happy Chanukah’ and act on what I learned and show him I remember. And that will surely add a bit of holiday cheer to both our lives.

Now, though I go on about the fact that I don’t like the reduction of all these varied celebrations to the blanket ‘Happy Holidays’, there is really nothing wrong with people saying it. There is something wrong when one of the holidays names begins to be replaced by that generic term.

Yes, the generic term can be taken as shorthand, but why? It serves no purpose–particularly in a situation where one is describing merchandise. Should I buy the ‘holiday traditional’ as a pagan? But it SAID ‘holiday’ traditional! It isn’t. It, and all the other unnamed Christmas stamps are Christmas specific–and the Madonna and Child is Christian specific.

I am not a Christian, but my holiday shares many images with theirs–I could, feasibly, go to a post office, ask for a hundred ‘holiday traditional’ stamps, thinking, I’ll get the standard images of the season, and find that I’ve bought a roll of Mary and Jesus. The name–‘holiday traditional’ does not describe the content–Christian-specific holiday traditional’.

And all this brings to me the question of why use the generic term of Christmas specific stuff in the first place? If you’re sellng Christmas stuff, presumably the people buying it celebrate Christmas. How could you disrespect or offend them by calling the Christmas stuff they’re buying ‘Christmas stuff’?

Because they know it’s Christmas stuff there’s no need to call it that? That’s one of the things you seem to be saying. Instead call it ‘holiday’ and people who celebrate Christmas can ‘read between the lines’. Why should they? Does the mere sight of the word offend?

Do you see? You’re arguing that Christmas items, being sold to Christmas celebrants nned no naming because people who celebrate Christmas already know what they are.

And then you argue that we should all use generic greetings because we don’t want to be disrespecful or impolite…..so we don’t SEE Christmas, we don’t SAY Christmas….and you can’t see how even secular people who celebrate Christmas might feel a bit put out?

And that’s an important point. Many ridicule those who feel this way as ‘right-wing fundamentalist Christians’. That’s the first assumption. It gets applied to me all the time. And I am NOT Christian. Some have even called me ‘anti-christian’. And I will freely admit that there are, here and there on the web, pieces I’ve written that could be seen as derogatory of the worship of the One God. But the point I’m making(or trying to) is that The O’Reillys’ and Gibsons’ of the world are showing you the idiot’s face of something that is more widespread than you might think. There is a resentment among the Rudolph and Frosty crowd that overshadows the religious ranting of the right.

yosephus , you are a genius. Those poor persecuted christians!!!