Spare Christmas the political correctness

The Oh Really Factor
By Maurice O. Ndole
The Collegian

In October, a Florida School board voted to remove all religious holidays from its calendar after Muslims asked to have Eid-al-Fitr, a holiday celebrating Ramadan, the end of fasting in the Islamic religion, added to the calendar to match Christian and Jewish holidays such as Christmas, Yom Kippur and Easter.

But the newly adopted strictly secular calendar did not enjoy its awkward placing.

The decision caused such an outcry – even from Muslims – that in less than three weeks after voting 5-1 in favor of banning the holidays, the board voted 5-2 to bring them back and considered adding others.

Such is the passion surrounding any debate that pits views about religion and government against each other. In the past few years, the Christmas season has limped through amid controversy about what the season should be called.

Wal-Mart, the world’s leading retailer, has also been a victim of the Christmas controversy.

Wal-Mart was forced to put back its Merry Christmas greetings instead of Happy Holidays in its promotional items after the Catholic League threatened to start a boycott campaign against the retailer.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue said Wal-Mart discriminated against Christmas according to a report in their Web site.

He said a search on the Wal-Mart Web site search engine returned 200 items when keyword ‘Hanukkah,’ a Jewish holiday, was used for the search. The Web site also returned results for 77 items when a search was conducted using the keyword ‘Kwanzaa,’ the African-American Holiday. But when Christmas was entered, the search engine returned a message, which said: “We’ve brought you to our ‘Holiday’ page based on your search.”

Things must have dramatically changed because on the Wal-Mart Web site my keyword search of the site using keyword ‘Christmas’ returned more than 7,000 items, keyword ‘Hanukkah’ returned two items and ‘Kwanzaa’ returned 77 items.

The Christmas/ Holiday controversy has extended to the Senate.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert wrote to the Capitol architect to have the seasonal tree on the Capitol grounds be known as the Capitol Christmas Tree, instead by its current name Capitol Holiday Tree.

“I strongly urge that we return to this tradition and join the White House, countless other public institutions and millions of American families in celebrating the holiday season with a Christmas tree,” Hastert wrote to Architect Alan Hantman according to an AP report.

Ironically, even in supporting Christmas, Hastert could not avoid using “holiday” – the word he wants removed from the tree’s name.

The name of the Capitol Tree was changed in the 1990s. It is unclear who changed it and for what reasons.

I think we’re interpreting the laws about separation of church and state too literally. There should be discretion in how these laws apply especially when no physical harm is being done. For people who don’t recognize Christmas having Christmas themes throughout society for almost two months may be hard to deal with, but finding a positive twist and new meaning to the season is not a bad idea.

But it is absurd to demand the scrapping of a holiday just because you don’t recognize it.

At the same time it’s not fair to push some holidays and suppress others.

When you think of it, many people no longer relate Christmas with the birth of Jesus or to its religious connection.

The holiday has become more secular and commercial than religious.

I plan on enjoying my Christmas Holiday, so please spare Christmas the political correctness.

It was fun sharing my off-the-wall opinions with the esteemed readers of The Oh Really Factor.

And at the risk of offending some of you, I wish you a Merry Christmas and success in your final exams.

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