It's time to demand that Christmas be dropped...

[GOPFighter]

...as a federal holiday.

I have finally reached my gag limit on the stupid, hateful, insecure, assholes who call themselves Christians and demand the the entire country pay homage to their god. These fundamentalists, and I was raised as one, have gone too far in their bullying to get everyone in America to celebrate the non-birthday of their one-third of a god, Jesus. What if you're Jewish? Fuck you. What if you're a Muslim? Fuck you...and get the hell out of our country while you're at it. What if you're an agnostic or an atheist? Fuck you! Gone is the concept - taught to me by my fundamentalist parents - of showing respect for other's beliefs. Gone is any humility or compassion for other people's feelings. They don't really worship Jesus, they refuse to live by his teachings, they just use his name to justify their bullying tactics born of their knowledge that in every other endeavor they are scared, insecure losers.

Well, enough is enough. If you bullies are so fuckin' insistant that the Federal holiday on December 25 be acknowledged and celebrated by EVERYONE as the birthday of Jesus, then this is an unambiguous example of the government promoting religion. This is wrong and as a non-Christian and a citizen of this nation, I demand that the government, my government, recuse itself from promoting Christianity. I REFUSE TO BE BULLIED! Christians can continue to celebrate Christmas, but will no longer get an official day off of work with pay.

So with this, all you bizarre, persecuted, insecure, angry, hateful, miserable people (yes, this includes you O'Reilly!) who want to impose your bizarre beliefs on the rest of us, I say FUCK YOU! I've had it with your bizarre Intellignet Design, your bizarre insistance that all of America's social problems result from a lack prayer in school, that posting the Ten Commandments has some magical power to make this country better. If you want to play hardball, if you want to insist that December 25 must be recognized and celebrated as a religious holiday, let's go to court. The Supreme Court might be able to justify "...under God..." or "In God We Trust" as a generic recognition of a higher power that does not promote one religion over another, but it cannot deny that designating December 25 as the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the source of Christianity, is a case where the state is promoting a single religion. Who knows how the court will rule, but I'm willing to take my chances. Are you?

[Fridays Child]

1. Agree.

[leveymg]

2. It's their wedgie non-issue. Don't even play into it.

Who cares.

[klook]

9. Correct. It's nothing more than a ploy

to keep focus off of the indictments, torture, developing corruption scandals, opposition to the war, etc. A red herring from the Rove Kitchen.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. I teach in Florida

and Christmas is not a paid holiday for us. Schools are closed but we don't get paid. We have a two week enforced "vacation" with no pay. Which means our paycheck in January is two-weeks later than usual.

[Canuckistanian]

5. Yes, that's the "dirty little secret" isn't it?

When people say, "You teachers have it so easy, you get Christmas and Spring Break and Summers off".

What they don't realize is, there's no pay coming in for those periods. My wife was a teacher and we had to plan very aggressively how to manage our finances during the summer.

By the time September finally came around, we were happy to see school start again, so we could pay off bills and buy decent food.

[leveymg]

8. Don't you have a 12 month salary payment option?

[Canuckistanian]

15. Very few school boards offer it

And it's a lousy deal. There's something about many of the plans that actually costs money.

[leveymg]

6. You guys need a union.

My wife's a teacher. :hi:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. We have one!

NEA and the local, LCTA.

[trotsky]

10. How's Cheri Yucky (Yecke) working out for ya?

We booted her out of Minnesota after she tried to take down our public school system, now I hear Jeb hired her for 6 figures down there.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

14. I try not to pay too much attention

on the state level when it comes to Jeb. He has been, in general, rough on us with all the standardized testing emphasis. But I think that is a trend nationally, as well.

IT SUCKS!

[Bloodblister Bob]

4. I'm with you. The fundie bully-bastards have ruined Christmas! nt

[trotsky]

7. A better way to do it is to put them on the defensive.

Other religious groups should step up and demand that their holy days become federal holidays too. Faced with the prospect of having to grant their request, the feds might just have to drop them all. I'd be fine with dropping all federal holidays, and requiring that employers give their employees 3 weeks of paid vacation (or better yet, 4) that they can take on whatever days they want.

[GOPFighter]

12. Good alternative

I try to respect everyone's right to worship as they please and their right to express opinions publically, but I'm just so damn fed up with being bullied by hateful, angry, hypocrits. It's obvious O'Reilly is doing this to increase ratings, but those who buy into it are serious, and they should be made to realize that by insisting that Christmas is a religious holiday and must be acknowledged by all as such, puts it on very shaky ground constitutionally.

[Speck Tater]

11. That will never happen

The best we can do is take the holiday and make it our own. That's what every culture has done since the beginning of time. It's what the Christians did with all the pagan festivals like Easter. The answer is not to be the Grinch that stole Chritmas, but to adopt it, embrace it and thoroughly secularize it.

[ozone_man]

16. Most people celebrate it in a secular way.

It wasn't until this year that this issue seems to have come to the forefront. But it really is a pagan holiday, and most people celebrate it in a way that pagans did. Then again, I don't live in the bible belt. I'm all for restoring it as Yule. :)

Many symbols and practices associated with Christmas are of Pagan origin: holly, ivy, mistletoe, yule log, the giving of gifts, decorated evergreen tree, magical reindeer, etc. Polydor Virgil, an early British Christian, said "Dancing, masques, mummeries, stageplays, and other such Christmas disorders now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalian and Bacchanalian festivals; which should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them." In Massachusetts, Puritans unsuccessfully tried to ban Christmas entirely during the 17th century, because of its heathenism. The English Parliament abolished Christmas in 1647. Some contemporary Christian faith groups do not celebrate Christmas. Included among these was the Worldwide Church of God (before its recent conversion to Evangelical Christianity) and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

DRUIDISM: Druids and Druidesses formed the professional class in ancient Celtic society. They performed the functions of modern day priests, teachers, ambassadors, astronomers, genealogists, philosophers, musicians, theologians, scientists, poets and judges. Druids led all public rituals, which were normally held within fenced groves of sacred trees. The solstice is the time of the death of the old sun and the birth of the dark-half of the year. It was called "Alban Arthuan by the ancient Druids. It is the end of month of the Elder Tree and the start of the month of the Birch. The three days before Yule is a magical time. This is the time of the Serpent Days or transformation...The Elder and Birch stand at the entrance to Annwn or Celtic underworld where all life was formed. Like several other myths they guard the entrance to the underworld. This is the time the Sun God journey's thru the underworld to learn the secrets of death and life. And bring out those souls to be reincarnated." 14 A modern-day Druid, Amergin Aryson, has composed a Druidic ritual for the Winter Solstice. 15

http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm

[Goldensilence]

17. agreed

it's been attempted to be secularized by corporate America and made into a nice little capitalist holiday spending spree.

I think that's why the fundamentalists are pissed. Which makes me laugh. They sold their souls to coporate America for power and now...they are reaping what they have sown.