Uh, this is satire.

Besides, what does Santa have to do with Christmas? Santa is the very reprsentation of Christmas' secularization, which religious conservatives are always inveighing against.

The display is satirical commentary on the rampant commercialization of Christmas; if anything the display is highly respectful of traditional religious values.

More at my blog, here.

Gee, you think it's related to the fact that Christians are 80% of the US and maybe they aren't vulnerable anywhere but in Bill O'Reilly's imagination?

I have a great deal of empathy for Christians in Sudan, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, the Palestinian territories, China, India, Pakistan, the Phillippines, and other nations where they're a persecuted (or at least discriminated-against) minority.

But in the US? Please. They're hardly the ones that need to be treated with sensitivity.

It's almost as sad as those Tsunami stories we read about earlier this year. For a group who is very much the majority, (and correct me if I'm wrong, but damn, their holidays enjoy Federal classification for crying out!) they sure are a paranoid/whiny group.

As Stossel would say "give me a break".

Did I say Christians were persecuted? No. Sure didn't.

Please. I'm sick of Christophobes who think that American Christians will be slaughtering our fellow Americans after seeing Mel Gibson's movie on the Passion or if we (God forbid) put up a religious symbol on public property (like say the giant menorrah on the White House lawn). This may be hard to fathom on the Upper East Side but American Christians out in the heartland are not Nazis.

I think the display was funny satire, but I do agree that there is more open season on things Christians may hold dear than non Christians.

I know this is only peripherally related, but I recall throughout the 90's conservatives grousing about liberals, and how they were so into victimhood. Boy have the tables turned! Let's see:

*Conservatives are oppressed in Academia
*Conservatives are oppressed in the media
*There's a war on Christmas
*The Public Schools have a war on young males
*The Public Schools are at war with Christians
*Christiany has been banished from the so-called "public space".
*Conservative values are scorned by Hollywood.

It's ironic, pathetic, and very annoying that once a party/ideology gets in the majority they take on the irritating strategy of victimhood.

Joseph:

Thank you for listing the proof that the Religion of the Left is engaging in a jihad against Christians and Americans,

What prood did I give? Perhaps I wasn't clear. These are the endless *claims* that conservatives and Christians make.

Do you really think anything the left does amounts to a Jihad?

lol - they are more like the Wile E. Coyote-Acme party.

Joe W-

You want proof? I recommend checking out "The War Agaisnt Boys" by Christina Hoff Sommers, "Persecution" by David Limbaugh, "Shut Up and Sing" by Laura Ingraham to cover most of that. As for media bias against conservatives, there are way too many sources for me to list. Maybe just watch CNN for 20 minutes.

And you just proved my point that conservative have become the new "victimhood party".

Thanks

The Noisy Voice of Reason
By Mark Dorroh
'Tis the season to contemplate the birth of Jesus Christ, an activity which I greatly enjoy. But by the tone of some of the public discourse we're subjected to, 'tis also the season for the Antichrist to rear his ugly head, smashing and trashing all things holy.
The reactionary rhetoric of some pundits in response to the alleged war on Christmas has hit new heights of hyperbole. I suppose I can sympathize with the people who feel the holiday (a word which is nothing more than a contraction for "holy day," so what's the fuss?) is under attack from the dreaded secular humanists. After all, the My-God-Is-Better-Than-Your-God crowd has had its way for virtually all of human history, while the notion that we should all live together in peace and respect one another's belief systems is a relatively new wrinkle.
So these days, every time someone suggests setting up an exclusively Christian display on government owned property might not be the world's best idea, the MGIBTYG gang points and chants, "See! We told you it was even worse than you thought!"
Well, maybe. But as a Christian of the Jeffersonian Deist variety, I can't imagine why anyone would think another person's relationship with God is anyone's business but his own. The great I Am knows what He knows, and according to the Bible, He is the only one fit to judge us on our religious beliefs, the lack of them, or anything else.
But the same folks who don't think the government has any business telling them not to drain the swamp on the north 40 so they can plant more wheat somehow think it's fine for the state to visibly endorse one faith over another.
The problem with that attitude is, the only reason Christians are free to practice our faith is that the First Amendment specifically forbids government to meddle in the religious lives of citizens. Before that particular guarantee of personal rights was encoded into law, Christians in colonial America used to harass one another mercilessly, oppressing fellow Christians in Christ's holy name on a distressingly regular basis. For instance, in 18th century Prince George County, Virginia, Baptists and Quakers were officially persona non grata and the King's Sheriff used to get a per-head bounty for running them over the county line.
A lot of modern day Christians don't know that, which could explain their odd interpretation of the meaning of "Congress shall make no law" either establishing a state faith or interfering with citizens' free exercise of their own.
Now, if the stores at which you shop pretend to be under similar constraints, that's a different kettle of holly berries. Such commercial censoring of Christian symbols is a disgrace, and the proper consumer response is to boycott the whoopee-doo out of those who do it.
Please note, putting up a Menorah next to the crèche is not the same as substituting Santa for Christ, so don't get carried away with holy fervor if merchants merely try to demonstrate respect for the religious beliefs of all their customers.
But when the jolly old elf supplants all religious art in a given emporium,that is a genuine offense to Christians. The good news is, if enough of us make known publicly our disgust with policies of that rancid sort, merchants will change their tune (and their decorations) in a skinny minute.
If all the stores you can find feature candy canes and elves but nothing celebrating the Reason for the Season, what would be wrong with going back to the old ways? The Puritans, victims of state religious persecution who knew a thing or two about holy days, used to forbid any sort of merry-making on His birthday. The first Christians, regularly tortured to death for refusing to give up their allegiance to God, didn't celebrate Christ's birth at all and somehow that didn't impair their ability to practice their faith in a meaningful way.
So if the war on Christmas is really burning your toast, try this: skip the malls for now, buy your gifts in January, hide them for a year and give them next Christmas. Then you can hit the January sales in 2007 and start the cycle all over again.
I won't be doing this, because my gift-giving is always minimal at best. Christmas for me has a lot more to do with spirituality than gift-giving, and it's no bark off my Yule Log if some other folks get the cart before the horse.
But of course that's just my own goofy tolerance talking. If you are someone who is really all about waging holy war on secular humanists, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, ancestor-worshipers, Moslems, Taoists, nature-worshippers, Confucians, Zoroastrians and the politically correct, here's your big chance to send a message. Trust me, one slow Christmas buying season will make corporate America sit up and take notice.
You'll miss gift-giving for one year, but hey, according to an awfully lot of thoughtful Christians, including the late, great Theodore Seuss Geisel, maybe Christmas isn't about swapping material possessions anyway.
"Maybe Christmas," he wrote, "is a little bit more."

Mark Dorroh is copy editor and columnist of the Hopewell (VA) News.His E-mail adddress, in case you were wondering, is an acronym for "Rapidly Aging Republican Media Creep, With Attitude."

Now, aren't you glad we cleared that up?

Hey, here's hoping ave a terrific Christmas, an enlightened Festival of Lights and a rambunctious New Year.