Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Allgar
Bob, it's my understanding that the whole attempt to replace "Christmas" by "Holiday", or some other anodyne word, occurs at an official rather than an individual level. For example:
One of the most prominent Christmas tree controversies came in 2005, when the city of Boston labeled their official decorated tree as a holiday tree, and the subsequent response from the Nova Scotian tree farmer who donated the tree was that he would rather have put the tree in a wood chipper than have it named a "holiday" tree.
In 2007, a controversy arose when a public school in Ottawa, Ontario planned to have the children in its primary choir sing a version of the song " Silver Bells" with the word "Christmas" replaced by "festive".
... A controversy regarding these issues arose in 2002, when the New York City public school system banned the display of Nativity scenes ...
In the United Kingdom there have been some controversies, one of the most famous being the temporary promotion of the phrase Winterval for a whole season of events (including Christmas festivities) by Birmingham City Council in the late 1990s. This remains a controversial example of "Christmas controversy", with critics attacking the use of the word "Winterval" as being political correctness gone mad. |
Mostly it happens on an individual and social level, fed by the press (and much exaggerated by the press, since I don't really think it's something that troubles the vast majority of people in the slightest). When it happens at the governmental level, there are Constitutional considerations, since in theory we separate church and state, so there's always an issue when it comes to having a government building display a nativity scene, for example, just as there would be if public schools adorned their walls with crucifixes or required prayer.
The situation you refer to in Boston, though, reinforces my point. It was the "Christmas" people getting angry that the more inclusive word "holiday" was used, not the "holiday" people trying to delete the word "Christmas." If the essence of PC-ness is trying to control people's language based on your own preferences and sensitivities, then the PC police here were not the happy holiday people but the Merry Christmas people. No one would say this, however, because the pejorative "PC" is somehow reserved for liberals. When conservatives try to force their views into the mainstream it is never a cause for concern, it seems.
But even if I conceded the "happy holidays" issue, I wonder why this would be considered such a tragically horrible thing, and I question the hyperbole involved in calling it a war on Christmas rather than a war on anyone who may not celebrate Christmas but nonetheless enjoys the festive holiday spirit that ushers in the winter months.
Much more concerning in the US is the invocation of "political correctness" to rebut and silence those who do not think it's a good idea to seal our borders to non-Christians, to allow gender discrimination, to suspend constitutional rights for Muslims, to discriminate against gay people, to make fun of people with disabilities, etc. Believe me when I tell you that the Republicans candidates who continually assure us that the problem with America is too much political correctness are
not focusing on the Merry Christmas issue.