The War on Christmas...

...IS a canard perpetrated by right wing-nuts who lack the ability to engage in any sort of substantive debate about more pressing issues.

First, in 1921, it was Henry Ford proclaiming a war on Christmas was part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy to subvert Christmas, Easter and other Christian holy-days. This was described in his tract "The International Jew".

In 1959, the John Birch Society changed things a bit. Instead of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy to subvert Christian ideals in America, a Communist plot to "Drive Christ out of Christmas..." was proclaimed by the Birchers. And the key player in this assault on Christmas was "...the Godless UN...".

Nowadays, we have right-wing waterheads like Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, et al, revealing a new enemy out to destroy Christmas and Christian ideals. It's (GASP!) SECULAR HUMANISTS! These Godless heathens are out to remove every last shred of Christianity from America...Not that it's really going to happen.

Christianity has greater enemies within its own ranks though. From the snake-oil salesmen touting their cheesy "prosperity theology" to the televangelists preaching to the enthralled masses in their glitzy mega-churches, these have done more to undermine Christ's message than any "secular humanist" conspiracy. Instead of servants teaching the word of Christ to those who come seeking His comfort, these "preachers" have created their own cults of personality dedicated more to their own self-aggrandizement than Christ's message. The secular power they have gained from a religious base has stripped them of their humility before God and, as a result, the message they preach is not God's, it is their own.

So, before folks go pointing fingers at "secular humanists" for a non-existent war on Christmas, perhaps they should look to themselves as the cause, rather than the cure, of their percieved undermining of Christian ideals.