Where have the jolly ho, ho, hos gone?
Scott Snyder
Issue date: 12/10/07 Section: Opinions
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This Christmas season, many retailers, cities and government buildings will omit traditional Christmas images or phrases in hope of not offending people who don't celebrate the holiday. According to an Opinion Dynamics poll presented by Fox News, 96 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. It looks like groups omitting Christmas as a sign of respect are trying to cater to four percent of the American population while offending more than four percent of people who celebrate Christmas.
The political correctness of the elimination of Christmas in name or image is becoming ridiculous. Don Feder of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation said, "Since America is a Christian nation and since we believe that religion is a public good, we think it's good for Christians to be able to celebrate their holiday - one of their two most important holidays." He also believes that it's "sad [that there is a] politically correct purging of Christmas from our culture."
Since it's been established that a vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas or support the celebration of Christmas even if they do not personally celebrate the holiday, why are some people or places attempting to purge public Christmas displays from American culture? The institutions participating in these activities offend more people than they appease.
For example, Westaff sent a memo out to encourage Santas to say "ha ha ha" because "ho ho ho" may scare children or offend women. Unless a woman is a "ho," she most likely won't be offended by the phrase.
Not to be outdone by censoring Christmas, Lowe's has advertised "family trees" for sale. After consumers protested, they claim it was a printing mistake (it was corrected to "holiday trees"). I would think if you don't celebrate Christmas, you would not buy a Christmas, holiday, or even family tree for that matter. When Lowe's stoops to this level of political correctness, they lose customers who would be more than happy to buy a Christmas tree. At least they can console themselves with the fact that atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists and people of other religions can buy family trees; sorry, that was a printing error, I meant holiday trees.
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The political correctness of the elimination of Christmas in name or image is becoming ridiculous. Don Feder of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation said, "Since America is a Christian nation and since we believe that religion is a public good, we think it's good for Christians to be able to celebrate their holiday - one of their two most important holidays." He also believes that it's "sad [that there is a] politically correct purging of Christmas from our culture."
Since it's been established that a vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas or support the celebration of Christmas even if they do not personally celebrate the holiday, why are some people or places attempting to purge public Christmas displays from American culture? The institutions participating in these activities offend more people than they appease.
For example, Westaff sent a memo out to encourage Santas to say "ha ha ha" because "ho ho ho" may scare children or offend women. Unless a woman is a "ho," she most likely won't be offended by the phrase.
Not to be outdone by censoring Christmas, Lowe's has advertised "family trees" for sale. After consumers protested, they claim it was a printing mistake (it was corrected to "holiday trees"). I would think if you don't celebrate Christmas, you would not buy a Christmas, holiday, or even family tree for that matter. When Lowe's stoops to this level of political correctness, they lose customers who would be more than happy to buy a Christmas tree. At least they can console themselves with the fact that atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists and people of other religions can buy family trees; sorry, that was a printing error, I meant holiday trees.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 2
Bunker
posted 12/10/07 @ 11:25 AM CST
Interesting opinion. I too am skeptical about Lowe's "mistake". I posted a link to this story on Lowe's employee forum, I hope you don't mind.
http://groups. (Continued…)
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