The Christmas Debate

From the-how-long-are-we-going-to-keep-calling-it-that kerryspot, Jim Geraghty answers Hugh Hewitt's call to tackle a bigger target than E.J. Dionne. Hugh suggests Jeff Jarvis' column "And God rolled his eyes II".

Jim does a good job of answering Hugh's call and Jeff's claims right down the line. I suggest you read Jeff's column before Jim's rebuttal.

I had this discussion at an after party family Christmas party in Minnesota over the weekend. I'm sure my points on politics would have been taken better by the room full of blue relatives (by marriage) if I were not shot so full of holes from self-inflicted vodka wounds, or wearing a T-shirt showing the red vs blue counties, but I digress.

I have a beautiful niece (yes Evie, I'm talking about you) that I have a history of having political discussions with, and she brought up this same old separation of church and state issue that always seems to make the rounds this time of year. I have no problem with the intent of the separation of church and state, but it sure isn't school choirs singing Christmas carols, or a nativity scene at city hall. The original intention was that there was not to be a national religion such as with England, with whom we were separating from at the time.

We also have this little thing about freedom of religion in this country. If Christmas cannot be openly celebrated because it offends someone who is Jewish, then we can't openly celebrate Hanukah. Now we are going to be running into some real problems with the laws that our fore-fathers gave us.

Of course all of this is only hurting us as a nation. There is room in this country for all people to celebrate their various religious holidays, unless of course you are an athiest, in which case you will have to make something up, get it notarized and then send it in to the various calendar makers to have it included for next years edition (try not to make it in December, it's getting really full and my liver can't take it).