John Gibson, gutsy anchor of Fox News’ “The Big Story,” is to be commended for titling his latest book The War on Christmas, for as Gibson shows, the attempt by certain groups to prohibit Christmas displays is not simply an academic difference on how to interpret the Establishment Clause but a desire, by anti-Christians, to stamp out of society any reference to Christmas. To wit, proscribing the innocuous greeting “Merry Christmas!” or placing the word Christmas over December 25 in the school calendar.
Gibson’s book chronicles schools from Eugene, Ore., to Maplewood, N.J., that have not simply forbidden singing carols but even the reading of Dickens’ literary classic A Christmas Carol. Gibson illustrates that often these decisions are made not by secularists but by school officials warned by the ACLU that it will bring the school and its officials to court unless all seasonal Christmas symbols are expunged from the premises.
The schools cave because they don’t have the money for a lawsuit, and they know the ACLU has abundant funds and pro bono lawyers eager to secularize the schools.
Worse, knowing that the schools are financially incapable of fighting them, the ACLU calls unconstitutional that which the Supreme Court has ruled constitutional, e.g., the display of a Christmas tree as opposed to a crèche. Nonetheless, schools capitulate and forfeit their constitutional rights out of financial inability to mount a defense no matter that the law is on their side.
In effect, the ACLU is interpreting our laws regarding the 1st Amendment-not the judges. As Gibson writes: “In fact, the tactics and strategy of the ACLU in its war on Christmas are the very definition of bullying.”…
by Rabbi Aryeh Spero
Human Events Online, November 24, 2005
Analysis:
It is ironic that the ACLU, in its attempt to secularize society, has taken on a holiday that has no real standing in the Christian faith.
Christmas is an invention of man, as the Scriptures nowhere establish a special day for Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Such a practice constitutes “will-worship” (cf. Matthew 7:21-23). Any observance of the holiday by Christians should be limited only to secular, social and family celebrations.
However, it remains that powerful organizations such as the ACLU are actively seeking the suppression of Christians’ public expressions of faith. It seems that many interpret the “establishment clause” in the constitution as giving men freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion. A nation without room for God will not stand for long (cf. Acts 17:24-26).
