Attempt to Suppress Christmas Is More Than People Realize

I did Alan Colmes radio show Tuesday night about my book "The War on Christmas."

Alan — who is my friend — jumped me about whether there really is a war. "How widespread is all this stuff?" he kept asking.

Well, the attempt to suppress or ban or banish Christmas is way more widespread that many people think, evidently.

My favorite Web site in this regard is called Tongue Tied. Find it using Google.

Tongue Tied posted this Wednesday — it should have been headlined, "Here We Go Again."

"The Times of London reports that even though the Christmas holiday is nearly two months away, some local authorities already have decreed that seasonal light displays will not be overly Christian.

Council officials in South London have dubbed the displays "Winter Lights" and "Celebrity Lights" to reflect the fact that lots of religious festivals take place during the winter and no one should feel left out."

Ok, that political correctness report from a Web site called Tongue Tied. Kicking off the Christmas controversy season with everybody expecting much more before December 26 dawns.

It's a struggle against the religious and it isn't just Christmas. For instance, the Rutherford Institute (search) in Virginia just settled a dispute in Maryland where a school district was thinking of restricting Thanksgiving. Why? Because the questions arose, "Who are we giving thanks to? Is it God?" Because if it is, we can't have that here in the school.

The Rutherford Institute also settled a case in which a young girl wrote in her student newspaper that she was glad to be in America because she was allowed to follow her own religion — simple statement of our freedom of religion. The principal was going to edit that comment out of the student newspaper claiming the separation of church and state demanded to get rid of any reference to religion.

That is just plain wrong. Yet that error will be repeated over and over this year because it is repeated every year, as amateur constitutionalists misinterpret our constitution and run way, way ahead of what the Supreme Court has ruled in this country.

The book "The War on Christmas" is number 18 on the Amazon non-fiction list as we went to air. Thanks to all of you who have pushed it up there.

Write to me at waronchristmas@johngibson.com

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