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JOHNSON: It's beginning to look again like the 'War on Christmas'

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 17, 2007 at 12:30 a.m.

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Crud. Here we go again.

Strap on your flak jackets - ceramic plates are not required - and load up the snowballs. We've got another "War on Christmas" raging.

I know, it is simply the silliest thing.

Hang on a second. Can I even write "Christmas" here? The last thing I want is to offend any non-Christian readers. But "The holiday that falls on Dec. 25" seems unwieldy.

Then again, so is every battle waged in this so-called war, from displays of colored lights to "holiday" trees. It is downright stupid, too, this annual November rush to "defend" Christmas, a time that makes otherwise-intelligent men and women turn into bile-spewing, foot-stamping children.

Consider Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden. He is a fine and quite funny man in conversation, yet someone ought to inform him that a Christmas tree has as much to do with Christianity as a catcher's mask.

Still, the sheriff has invited the public to come to his headquarters on Dec. 1 to help him decorate the tree he plans to display as a protest against a Fort Collins task force's equally silly recommendation that the city dump its tree and allow only secular displays and white lights on city property.

The sheriff is putting up a Christmas tree to defend his religious freedoms.

Remarkably, I get his thinking, though it makes my head split. Sheriff Alderden pretty much lays it out in the latest edition of the Bull's-eye, the newsletter he publishes on the department's Web site.

In it, he is vexed, to put it mildly: "Fort Collins is becoming more like the imbecilic borough of Boulder than many would like to admit, where social agendas substitute for common sense."

He blasts the task force's recommendation to city council that acceptable symbols be limited to snowflakes, snowmen, snowballs, ice skates, skis, penguins and polar bears, calling it stupid. I am with the sheriff on the penguin and snowflake nonsense. Put up a Christmas tree, Fort Collins.

It is not a crucifix or the Shroud of Turin, but an evergreen tree, whose use to celebrate the winter season goes back before the birth of Christ. And how colored lights could offend religious sensitivities is anyone's guess.

Jim Alderden, on the other hand, retreats to the same, tired spot Bill O'Reilly and other, mostly conservative commentators and groups stake out in the supposed War on Christmas: That well-meaning, but overreaching city officials are somehow trying to take the holiday away from them.

It is understandable. City officials, particularly those new to the office, seemingly always target Christmas in an attempt to mollify everyone.

Ask John Hickenlooper. Seated in the Denver mayor's chair for a relatively few months, he sought to remove the venerable "Merry Christmas" sign from the facade of the City and County Building.

"Christmas killer!" a chorus rang out. The mayor nearly whiplashed himself, he backpedaled so quickly. Thing is, he was hardly trying to kill Christmas. Rather, in attempting to not offend a few, he ticked off almost everybody.

Said Jim Alderden, "The fact that we are even engaged in a discussion of whether Christmas trees and Christian symbols of faith should be allowed on city property is silly."

He has been swamped with calls and letters of support since his Christmas tree invitation hit the news, he says. There have been over 100 supportive telephone calls, as many e-mails and a rash of donations made in support of his cause.

He has asked members of the Jewish community to bring over a menorah. Others have offered Nativity scenes.

"It just came to a point where I felt a public official has to stand up and take a position when things get nutty," the sheriff said. "And that's what this is, nutty."

He goes silent for a long period when I ask of the Nativity scene and, even, the menorah on his quite public property, those being quite clearly associated with two specific religions.

This is the problem with Christmas warriors, particularly those in public service. The tree is rarely enough. To object to a cross, a creche or other quite clearly religious symbols in the public square is to be against not only Christmas, but Christianity as well.

I want to witness the feathers that will fly come the day the local Islamic center wants to drop a copy of the Quran at the local holiday display.

Jim Alderden finally allowed that he didn't care, that his tree likely will be filled with crosses and other religious symbols.

He put it this way in the Bull's-eye: "When one is sliding down a slippery slope, there comes a time to dig in your heels, grab the nearest branch, and hold on for dear life. Our country, and sadly our own community, has reached that point where people of faith and good conscience can no longer stand silently while a belligerent minority usurps our heritage and dictates how and where we express our religious freedoms."

See, sheriff, none of it is about your religious freedoms. It has all been about Christmas trees and colored lights.

Comments

  • November 17, 2007

    9:07 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    yaakovwatkins writes:

    As long as the public is providing the materials, who cares? This is not about stamping out religion. This is about exercising the 1st Amendment rights to free exercise of religion.

    It strikes me that government must be overfunded it they have the time to fight about this kind of garbage.

  • November 18, 2007

    8:40 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Thomas123 writes:

    The hypocrisy of the "War on Christmas" faction is incredible (why is it that conservatives always need a “war on” something?). Year after year they yell and scream that “minority groups” and public officials are attempting to stamp out Christmas. Where is the outrage and indignation for the retailers, advertisers and media that have so commercialized Christmas that they have reduced the holiday to a shopping experience? If the “War on Christmas” faction really wants to take up a cause why don’t they fight that? Unless this is all just a veiled attempt to blur the line between church and state?

  • November 19, 2007

    4:38 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    T1anda writes:

    I think we should make it mandatory to have foot baths in all public places. Plus all women should wear burkas all over the world. Also, Santa Claus smokes!! What an evil, unhealthy obese, symbol we have come to cherish at Christmas. Christmas should just be abolished. Would that satisfy the PC crowd??

    Disgusting huh??