Beacon Broadside

by Frederick S. Lane

Forty or so years ago, a U.S. Senator from Vermont by the name of
George Aiken wisely advised both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon that the United States should simply declare victory in Vietnam and bring its troops home. Unfortunately, neither listened to him. His advice,
sadly, is still relevant. When President George W. Bush landed on the USS
Abraham Lincoln in 2003 and declared "Mission Accomplished," he only
got it half right; he overlooked the bit about bringing the troops home.

And then there’s Bill O’Reilly, the bombastic host of Fox News’s "The O’Reilly Factor," and
a cultural warrior who finally seems to have taken Aiken’s advice to heart. In
the December 13 episode of his show, O’Reilly announced that Fox News had won
the so-called "war on Christmas." Well, that is a relief. The only
question is whether O’Reilly will follow all of Aiken’s advice and call home
the Fox troops scouring the countryside for the last signs of the
anti-Christmas resistance.

"The
far left secular progressive community is furious, furious, I tell you about
losing the war on Christmas…. [A]ll over the country, the sights and signs of
Christmas are on display. Few department stores are telling employees not to
say a ‘Merry Christmas.’ And the Taliban-like oppression of the holiday has
largely ceased, but the SPs are not happy about that."

For those of you who lost your
scorecard, "SP" stands for "secular progressives,"
O’Reilly’s shorthand for all the left-wing, hippy, dope-smoking, Prius-driving,
bleeding-hearts who would rather say "Happy Holidays" or
"Season’s Greetings" than the Old Testament’s preferred "Merry Christmas."

O’Reilly’s self-promotion to
commander-in-chief in the "war on Christmas" occurred in December
2004, when he and fellow Fox host Sean Hannity began featuring stories from
around the country that allegedly demonstrated a growing cultural hostility to
Christmas. O’Reilly soon launched a regular feature on his show called
"Christmas Under Siege" and has resurrected the
theme each year as soon as the last turkey leftovers disappear.

Much like the war in Iraq, it turns
out that O’Reilly’s campaign to defend Christmas was based on faulty
intelligence. As Kingdom Coming author Michelle Goldberg ably
documented in a Salon article two Christmases ago, O’Reilly deftly inflated
a few minor examples of over-zealous inclusiveness into a vast and overblown
secularist conspiracy. O’Reilly is apparently unwilling to accept the
possibility that market forces—and not the dark influence of the left—
might motivate retail chains like Federated Department Stores and even Wal-Mart
to use the generally more welcoming "Happy Holidays" in their
seasonal advertising. The grand irony in all of this, of course, is the fact
that the Christian Right and its media mouthpieces like O’Reilly and Ann
Coulter have been so polarizing over the last seven years that "Merry
Christmas" increasingly sounds more like a command than a benediction.

The event that apparently
triggered O’Reilly’s declaration of victory was the House of Representative’s
passage on December 11 of a resolution in support of Christmas and
Christianity. The resolution, H.R. 847,
was sponsored by Iowa Republican Steve King and passed by an overwhelming
margin of 372-9. All nine of the representatives who voted against the
resolution were Democrats; eleven other courageous representatives, including
one Republican, voted "present."

There’s not much question
where Rep. King gets his news; he is clearly a foot-soldier for O’Reilly in the
"War on Christmas." In
an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Rep. King reiterated
O’Reilly’s main talking points: "I’ve watched Christ be eradicated by ACLU
(American Civil Liberties Union) lawsuits and people be afraid of
confrontations. They wish (people) ‘happy holidays’ but not ‘Merry Christmas’
because they might be offended."

Although much of the media
has covered the resolution as recognizing the importance of Christmas, that’s
not exactly what it does. Christmas is mentioned in a couple of the
resolution’s "Whereas" clauses, but what the House actually resolved
is much more about cloaking the United
  States in the shroud of Christianity. For
instance, the resolution states that the House of Representatives
"recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the
world," "acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and
Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the
western civilization," and "expresses its deepest respect to American
Christians and Christians throughout the world."

King told the
Post-Intelligencer that he proposed the resolution because he perceives an
anti-Christian bias sweeping the country. "I would not have thought that
five or 10 years ago that we’d need to make a statement" like H.R. 847.
The news of an anti-Christian bias in this country comes as something of a
surprise to the 25% of Americans who are not Christian, particularly at this
time of year. Throughout December, it is impossible to watch television, listen
to the radio, or read the newspaper without being reminded that one of Christianity’s
leading holidays is fast approaching. If Christmas were merely a day-long
religious celebration of the birth of Christ, that would be one thing, but
decades of increasingly hyperbolic marketing have turned it into a 5-6 week
long cultural and retail festival that can’t help but make non-Christians (and
even the Christian poor) feel Left Behind.

It is farcical for people
like Rep. King to suggest that Congress needs to help defend Christianity.
While some Christian Right leaders and media figures like O’Reilly have been
stunningly successful at creating the impression that the lions are just around
the corner, the reality is far different. The truth is that resolutions like
H.R. 847 are more divisive and polarizing than affirming. It is precisely the type
of thing that much wiser men, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, hoped
that this country would avoid.

Frederick Lane is an expert witness,
lecturer, and author who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. He writes daily for
Newsfactor.com on technology, law, and privacy, and he has just finished his
fourth book, The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right’s Crusade to
Reshape the Supreme Court (Beacon Press May 2008). For
additional information, please visit http://www.FrederickLane.com.