January 3, 2005
The Anti-Christmas Conspiracy
Leading up to Christmas, Atrios and a few other bloggers made some passing references to radical right wingers who were attempting to politicize Christmas by (predictably) complaining that secular liberals were trying to oppress their observance of a religious holiday or something or another. I thought it was a bunch of silliness and didn't pay it much mind. After all, those of us who don't practice Christianity have a much stronger case for complaints of oppression this time of year since the decorations and greetings and festivities completely consume American culture for a good month and a half. Aside from the usual "commercialization of Christmas" grumblings from Christians themselves, it's rare that I hear anyone complain. Everybody likes paid holiday.
Clearly this is another example of blue v. red cultural gap because over the holidays I learned that folks in the suburbs are living in quite a different reality. Apparently there is a major conspiracy to oppress the celebration of Christmas. My mother told me about a woman in one of her social groups who wholly rejects the "happy holidays!" greeting and said that she tells everyone she meets "Merry Christmas!" no matter what religion they are because it's her religion and she won't have her freedom of religion infringed upon. Insulting someone through a declaration of celebrating the birth of the Christ child seemed a bit odd to me but I assumed it was just another one of my mothers' quirky acquaintances.
That is until we headed to south Houston to visit my significant other's family. His sister tipped me off to the greatest declaration of resistance to the Anti-Christmas Conspiracy of all time: a "Merry Christmas Unless Prohibited By Law" sign painted on the back of a 5x7' Bush-Cheney '04 sign and proudly displayed in a suburban front yard between a "We support President Bush and Our Troops" sign and a "Happy Holidays" bear (I guess they missed the just-say-no-to-happy-holidays memo). I had to see it with my own two eyes to appreciate the good fortune of running across such a fascinating cultural artifact.
So there you have it. You suburban liberals really need to behave yourselves and stop persecuting your poor Christian neighbors for their religious beliefs. For shame.
Posted by sarah at January 3, 2005 10:45 AM | TrackBack