The Winter Solstice approaches, and the Pious prepare for battle.
Liberty Counsel has launched its seventh annual “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign,” pledging to be a “Friend” to those who recognize Christmas and a “Foe” to those who censor it.
‘Recognition’ includes exclusivity from retailers when greeting shoppers; those who say ‘season’s greetings’ to the nation’s Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Bahai, agnostics, atheists, Wiccans … they are foes.
The comical irony, of course, is the grotesque and garish dishonesty of it. Christianity stole the solstice from the Romans, who observed Saturnalia, who stole it from the Greeks, who stole it from the Egyptians, who stole it (probably) from Asia. The winter solstice has been the occasion for observances for at least 5000-years and, always, literally and metaphorically, the shortest day of the year has signified a sort of bottom and the promise of coming better times.
Such as Liberty Counsel, the American Family Association et. al., anticipate better times arising from the sale of belligerently-messaged merchandise.
Liberty Counsel hopes to sell buttons, little merit badges conducing toward a pleasing sense of Virtue on the part of those who, apparently, haven’t much else to brag about. Others will sell refrigerator magnets, bumper stickers and, best of all, some churches will buy hundreds of the silly things to give freely to their congregations. Meantime, retailers will tippy-toe around an increasingly tetchy clientele, just wanting to sell stuff to all comers but without reliable guidance as to which are overwrought fools.
Unless they’re wearing buttons, that is, in which case they will want to keep in mind Nietzsche’s famous observation: The last Christian died on the cross. In that case, they’ll need to dispense with goodwill toward all and indulge the wearer’s inflated vanity.
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