The War on Christmas

John Gibson is the anchor of Fox News Channel's "The Big Story." His new book is called The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse Than You Thought (Sentinel, 2005). In it, the author contends that secular militants have expanded their war on Christmas to go after things regarded by most people as innocent emblems of a primarily secular federal holiday.

"The people who are trying to keep Christians out of city hall, keep them out of schools, are now going after what are recognized by most people in America — and the United States Supreme Court — as purely secular symbols of the Christian holiday, Christmas," Gibson asserts. And, he points out, reverence for the so-called separation of church and state does not adequately explain the apparent particular animus toward Christmas and Christians as opposed to other religious holidays and observances.

The investigative reporter examines the ample evidence of the secular left's bias, citing such cases as that of certain state government workers in Illinois who were barred from saying the words "Merry Christmas" at work; and the case of local Rhode Island officials who banned Christians from participating in a public project to decorate a City Hall lawn.

He also points to a New Jersey school where even instrumental versions of traditional Christmas carols were prohibited; and an Arizona district where school officials banned any reference in a class project to the religious history of Christmas.

There are many similar stories gathered in the pages of Gibson's book, describing similar challenges and attacks on free expression where the celebration of Christmas is concerned.

"The common denominator is, you would ask a city manager in Eugene, Oregon, 'Why did you cause all that trouble for yourself by banning Christmas trees?' and he would say, 'Well, because they're Christian,'" the writer explains.

"There is this kind of casual and accepted bias against Christians and Christian symbols," Gibson contends, "even if the symbol is perceived to be a symbol of Christianity by the secularists or the objectors and it's not perceived to be one by the Christians themselves."

Chad Groening
Agape Press
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/152005g.asp

XXXMas

You see them on people walking down the street. On joggers. On subway riders. On shoppers at the mall. Men and women, old and young — no one is immune. They’re Apple iPods, and like many other electronic gadgets, they seem to have taken over the world.

Considering its ability to put thousands of digital-quality songs in the palm of your hand, it’s easy to see why the iPod has become ubiquitous. Unfortunately, the video-playing version of the iPod has become a platform for something else that’s far too prevalent: pornography. And not just photos (although that would be bad enough), but actual movies.

Steven Hirsch, CEO of the porn-producing Vivid Entertainment Group, is immensely pleased. “It could be a huge percentage of our business,” he told reporters. “People love watching adult movies and to be able to carry an adult movie in your pocket is a powerful tool.” A tool cyber-pimps like Hirsch are only too happy to use.

And so, just in time for Christmas, iPod users have the ability to download movies that years ago could be watched only by those willing to patronize some broken-down theater in the seediest part of town. 21st century technology meets the world’s oldest profession — and a society already awash in sexual imagery becomes a little darker and cruder.

Rebecca Hagelin
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/
columns/rebeccahagelin/2005/12/06/177872.html

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The Wisdom of Solomon

Imagine a college accepting your donation, then saying that you cannot have the same access to the school as all other alumni — but that you must continue making donations. Unbelievable? But that is what most law schools now claim: The U.S. government must continue funding universities to the tune of hundreds of millions, despite their decision to deny military recruiters the same access to students granted to all other recruiters.

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear FAIR v. Rumsfeld, an appeal from a 2-1 decision by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals holding that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to condition its funding to universities on military recruiters being afforded equal access to students. The case arises out of an attack on the Solomon Amendment, enacted by Congress in 1994 and signed into law by President Clinton, which mandates that federal funds be withheld from any university in which any part (for example, a law school) denies military recruiters that access.

The Supreme Court has previously sustained the "wide latitude" that Congress has "to attach conditions on the receipt of federal assistance," in order to further a government interest. All parties in this case agree that military recruitment is an important government interest.

Although recognizing the general right of the government to condition its funding, the Court of Appeals struck down the Solomon Amendment on the ground that it violates the universities' academic freedom not to appear to endorse the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military. This conclusion makes no sense. All that the government asks is that students who wish to hear a military recruiter's message have the same access as students do to hear other recruiters' messages.

The assertion that academic freedom is being violated by giving students the freedom to hear a military recruiter's message is Orwellian. The Supreme Court has made clear that academic freedom is primarily the right of students, not the right of school administrators to limit what students can hear to what is politically correct. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, in which school board sanctions against students for wearing arm bands to communicate their view on the Vietnam war were held unconstitutional, the court said, "In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the [school] chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments which are officially approved."

Gerald Walpin
Opinion Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007636

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No Dark Ages

The Dark Ages have finally been recognized as a hoax perpetrated by anti-religious and bitterly anti-Catholic, 18th-century intellectuals who were determined to assert their cultural superiority and who boosted their claim by denigrating the Christian past. ... This always should have been obvious since by the end of the so-called Dark Ages, European science and technology had far exceeded that of Rome and Greece, and all the rest of the world, for that matter. ...

Perhaps the most revealing instance involves the 'story' that in order to gain backing for his great voyage west, Columbus had to struggle against ignorant and superstitious churchmen who were certain that the earth was flat.

Truth was that all educated Europeans, including bishops and cardinals, knew the earth was round. What produced church opposition to the Columbus voyage was that Columbus believed the circumference of the earth was only about one-fifth of its actual distance. Thus, the church scholars who opposed him did so because they knew that he and his sailors were bound to perish at sea. And they would have done so had the Western Hemisphere not been there to replenish their food and water."

Rodney Stark
Interviewed by Marvin Olasky in the Dec. 3 issue of World
http://www.washtimes.com/culture/20051130-103121-6327r.htm