dougs digs

'Tis the season for the "War on Christmas" conspiracy theory to rear its head. The purported progressive plot to ban Christmas from the public square is now a daily staple of conservative talk radio and television, the focus of a popular new book (Fox News anchor John Gibson's "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought"), and the battle cry for some 1,600 lawyer-volunteers working with Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty Counsel and the right-wing Alliance Defense Fund. In the latest teapot tempest, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) made much ado over his insisting that the decorated spruce tree on Capitol Hill be called a Christmas tree. But the truth is, there is no war on Christmas. As Salon.com's Michelle Goldbert points out, "What there is, rather, is a burgeoning myth of a war on Christmas, assembled out of old reactionary tropes, urban legends, exaggerated anecdotes and increasingly organized hostility to the American Civil Liberties Union."

In Bill O'Reilly's words, "There's a very secret plan...to diminish Christian philosophy in the U.S.A"; in Gibson's telling, "I began to connect the dots and discerned the outlines of the conspiracy."

In the latest incarnation, the war on Christmas is used to falsely portray progressives as anti-religious. According to O'Reilly, the self-described "leading general of the anti-secular forces in this country," it is just one arm of the "secular progressive agenda to get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square." Comparing progressivism to Nazism and fascism, O'Reilly claimed, "In every secular progressive country, they've wiped out religion ... Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, all of them." Others on the right echo this line: Pat Buchanan writes, "What we are witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity." Meanwhile, the Alliance Defense Fund says it pursues legal action over perceived attempts by "government officials to censor Christmas carols, eliminate all references to Christmas, or silence those who celebrate Christ's birth." The White House could be a potential target; no mention of "Christmas" is made anywhere in the White House Christmas card.

There is a strong progressive religious movement that honors Christmas and holds fast to Christian values that put the needs of the poor first.