When I'm elected president I will fix the "Christmas Problem"

[jmowreader]

The fundies want to scream and wail about how the government is fuckin' with Christmas? Fine. I'll put a stop to their complaints.

I will give every major religion--which we will define as one in which either
(a) a large number of natural-born Americans practice, or
(b) a majority of one immigrant group practices

their choice of any two single-day holidays, or one multi-day religious celebration, that they can celebrate without any governmental interference whatsoever. (However, you'll have to pay for your own religious decorations. Municipalities may continue to pay for secular symbols.) Minor religions can have one single-day holiday. You Christians want to put religious Christmas and Easter decorations on the public square? Fine by me, but you can't bitch when the Jews celebrate Yom Kippur and Passover; no complaining when the Muslims put a Ramadan installation on the public square. And you definitely have no grounds to complain when the Wiccans, Pagans, Druids, and other religions do their thing.

America is not a Christian nation, it is a nation of many faiths. And as the Lord said that there are many mansions in Heaven, Jim says there are many religions on Earth.

And you have to learn to get along.

[Traction]

1. Be prepared to be impeached

If the Democratic Party ever adopts your extremist position on Christmas, I'm going to be forced to register Republican. I want to go back to the time when Christmas cartoons like "Rudolph", "Frosty", and "Santa Clause Is coming To Town" didn't cause any controversy, and neither did a Christmas tree in a public school (we're not talking prayer in school or Jesus here). You can say Happy Holidays all you want, I'll say Merry Christmas.

[REP]

2. Extreme Tolerance Must Be Stopped

Everyone knows that God is an English-speaking old man with a white beard and that other 'religions' are just made up gobbedly-gook and anyone who tries to say otherwise must be shot! I'm with you, Traction! Hand me a pitchfork and a torch, and let's GO!

[Spiffarino]

3. That's right!

And Jesus was a american. With blue eyes. I seen his picture in church.

[quaoar]

4. And "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

When Linus reads from the Gospel of Luke.

[jmowreader]

5. Someone didn't read the original post

Traction, under my Religious Equality doctrine, you can celebrate Christmas in any way you want right out on the public square. You can put up a creche. You can hang religious symbols on the lampposts. You can do Any Damn Thing You Want To Celebrate Christmas, just so long as the churches buy the religious decorations. (They will be happy to do this.) And you can do the same thing at Easter.

What Religious Equality means is that you can't bitch when the Muslims do the Ramadan celebration, the Jews put up their Passover displays and the Sikhs celebrate...well, I know they have a couple of high holy days. If your area has no Muslims, then naturally you won't have a Ramadan celebration.

[6000eliot]

7. Look at the word "holiday"

It means, "holy day," so wishing people a happy holiday is not removing religion from the celebration.

[Undercover Owl]

9. Say Merry Christmas if you want,

but it would be nice if "Merry Christmas" salutation was reserved for Dec 24, and Dec 25, only.

[tridim]

6. I want to start an atheist/agnostic holiday

No gifts, no cards, no candy or eggs. Just a day to celebrate being a free spirit. Who's in?

[foo_bar]

8. you just described Labor Day

[cattleman22]

10. That is a reasonable proposal.

I think that if a secular group can use public property, then a religious group must be given the same opportunity to use that public property.

[jmowreader]

11. And it's not like we're "forcing religion" on anyone with it

Okay, if the fundies start kidnapping people and forcing them to become members of the church, there will be repercussions. And no, we're not going to allow them to turn City Park into a full-time Church Without Walls. But I think that they have the perfect right to celebrate a couple of their high holy days in the public square, even as we atheists have the right to celebrate barbecue or whatever we celebrate.

We'll have to be very careful to keep them in line, though, or we'll be celebrating Sandal Day on August 15. Sandal Day is the day Jesus found that he'd worn a hole in his sandals from walking around the desert healing lepers and feeding thousands of people on one fish, and bought a new pair. Yes, I had to reach really far to get that one, but you get the idea: if we tell the BTs "you can celebrate your religion's high holy days" without giving them limits, the next thing you know there will be 365 high holy days.