Bill Donohue doesn’t think so.
Parents in Maine’s Scarborough School District say that efforts to ban Christmas have become so extreme that they now refer to Christmas as the new ‘C-word.’ In nearby New Hampshire, things aren’t any better. For example, the principal of Epping Elementary School boasts that his school raises money for the needy, ‘but we don’t call it a Christmas gift drive,’ and that’s because ‘it’s a time for giving and that’s pretty much universal.’ But if that’s the case, why choose December as the gift-giving month? Similarly, why is December ‘a time for giving’? His counterpart at Newfields Elementary is so wound up about Christmas that he actually said, ‘we’ve tried to distance ourselves from religion and world events.’ No doubt he’s been a smashing success.
Yadda yadda yadda. Who cares anymore? We’ve got a mid-winter break in schools around the country — it’s a good time to do something for others, whether you call it Christmas or Kwanzaa or Boodlyboop. Doesn’t matter. We’ll do stuff that we enjoy with friends and family, and we’ll do it without bowing down to your silly Jesus character, which is what really rankles right-wing Catholics.
But really, ol’ Bill tends to get upset about the most ludicrous things. The Scarborough school district calendar for December 2015 has the forbidden “C-Word” on it three times; but it looks like they showed an evil anti-Christian movie to the kids on the 15th.
The Student Advocacy office is sponsoring an ELF movie event on Tuesday, December 15th 2:30-4:30 in the SMS cafeteria. We are asking that students donate either a new, unwrapped toy or $5 for Toys for Tots. We will also have a bake sale with home baked goods provided by students and staff. All proceeds from this sale will go directly to Toys for Tots.
The movie was Elf. Not only was Jesus not in it, but it was all about an illegal alien trying to make Christmas all about having fun, rather than going to Mass.
Oops, I said the C-Word. Sorry, everyone.
Hey, doesn’t Elf use the C-Word a whole bunch of times? Those poor kids must have walked out of that cafeteria with blistered ears and a soul packed with damnation.
I just shake my head at the things these shitwits get outraged about. I mean come on, Elf? Meanwhile, they get up in arms when progressives suggest they moderate their language to avoid offending marginalized people and claim that we’re looking for stuff to get offended by.
This would make sense in 2016 BCE, when movies would have been seen as magic, teh c-word hadn’t been invented yet (as a word, holiday, or event to be celebrated albeit the event’s origin as a legend would perhaps have appealed), and oh’really would have been the Grand Vicar, renowned for his having many wives and slaves, and ordering numerous executions.
Uh huh. “I’d kick you in the Christmas.” “You stupid Christmas!” Oh yeah, definitely carries the same weight as the old C-word.
I’m in the mood to slap a person. I wonder if the ‘new C-word’ person is available.
Oops, this was oh’really spouting off, this as dontknow. It can be hard to keep track of the loons without a spotter’s gjuide…
Tony!:
I think you misread PZ – no one is upset about that movie.
Don’t forget the War on Easter!!! It will be here soon. Fundies don’t have holidays. They have wars on holidays.
There really is a war on Easter. Fundies hate the word Easter because Easter was named after the Germanic goddess of spring and fertility. They keep trying to call it Resurrection Sunday instead. Most people don’t really care though.
Then there is the War on Halloween, which starts after the War on Xmas.
Bill Donahue is a one-man band. I looked at the IRS filings for the Catholic League a couple years ago. The budget is tiny, and a huge chunk of it goes to pay Bill an exorbitant salary. There appear to be only a few other employees in the whole organization, and most of the funding comes from a very small number of donors and the interest off an immense endowment. The numbers that stick in my mind are a $350,000 salary that’s part of a total of $2 or $3 million in annual expenses and a $30+ million endowment, probably some rich Catholic in years past who willed a significant chunk to Donahue.
I got the distinct impression he’s just keeping the grift floating along so he can keep collecting his salary forever, without actually worrying about doing anything meaningful. If the mainstream press were to do an expose of this organization’s finances, he’d disappear from TV overnight because it’s clearly a grift, even if there are no specific illegal acts being committed.
Not before we’ve had the War on Lent!
Put the East back in Easter!
Put the Ent back in Lent!
Put the Turd back in Saturday!
Well, at least put Ēostre back in Easter. And get that Jeebus guy out of there.
As a friend said to me recently. ‘With Christmas sales starting in October, if there’s a war on Christmas, then Christmas is winning.’
[Quote=The blowhard]But if that’s the case, why choose December as the gift-giving month?[/QUOTE]
Well, gee it might just have something to do with there being ~29 holidays in and relatively close to December, including :
Christmas
Solstice
Diwali
Channukkah
New Years
Bodhi Day
Eid-al-Adha
Kwanzaa
Because if we chose any other month, you’d be complaining that that was a slight against Christmas. There’s no accommodating these people. They’re congenitally offended.
Mike Smith, you forgot Festivus.
Apart from English, how many languages have any mention of a fictional character in their word for the day we know as Christmas?
cag,
The Spanish “Navidad”, French “Noel”, Italian “Natale” and Portuguese “Natal” don’t include the name of Christ, but they derive from the Latin word for birth and clearly refer to the birth of Jesus. Can’t vouch for other languages.
Mike Smith…and let’s not forget Attis. I’ve been using Attismas lately. It has a certain ring to it. Born of a virgin on December 25th. Died on a tree. Mmmm…
zenlike
Ahh, the war against Rosy-fingered Dawn. Yeah, that one was theirs, wasn’t it?
Merry Christmas in various languages. Just a quick perusal suggests that, even discounting languages where the word is clearly borrowed from a European language, quite a lot of the words for Christmas either include “Christ” explicitly (Greek, Dutch) or make reference to birth (Armenian, the Celtic and Romance languages).
The movie was Elf.
Is that what’s left of The Hobbit after Jackson mangled it?
Seriously, though, it makes me miss the days when christians thought elves were from D&D and therefore satanic. And then I had to tell them, “no! pagan. satan is christian!”
I think we should have a “war on yelling ‘oh Jeeeezus!’ when you have a particularly good orgasm.”
I’m not even sure who should be on which side, to be completely honest. I’m an atheist but I sometimes engage in the practice (which makes my partner poke me in the ribs and laugh at me) So am I blaspheming or praising jesus properly for part of a process his mom didn’t enjoy? And what would jesus say, “OHHhhhh! ME ME ME ME!”???
It’s never too early to start a crusade War on Christmass. As late Sir Terry Pratchett wrote: “Trouble is easy to find when you have enough people looking for it.” . What would they have said if it was ALF instead of ELF?
P.S. I hope it is ok if I post this link here, P.Z. (it points to my friend Roy’s Indiegogo campaign). He is trying to get enough money to become a web developer and fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a certified web developer. Only 10 days left, he didn’t collect nearly enough, so please help him. Campaign is here at: http://igg.me/at/HelpRoyLearn/x/2859006
Thank you very much.
What exactly do these christmas warriors want?
Think about it. Schools *have* to be secular. It is the law. So they have to shy away from anything that resembles religious observation. Christmas has some religious connotations. Some. But schools observe it anyway because people would be pissed off if they didn’t.
So don’t they get it? They *WON*! Christmas won! We observe christmas anyway! *SHEESH*
I, for one, love the ‘war on xmas,’ and I’ll happily battle with the xians all year long, if they want. Poking holes in their pretensions is my favorite pastime.
I don’t know about a War on Christmas, but given all the renditions of White Christmas, Baby It’s Cold Outside, and Santa Baby that I’ve been forced to listen to, I want a war on Christmas music.
Don’t forget the interminable droning of “The Little Dumber Boy!”
microraptor — “war on Christmas music”…yes, this please. Let’s band together to make this stop. I think I could almost stand the season were it not for the music, or the incessant repetition of the same songs where the new chestnuts are no better than the old chestnuts. So, I begin complaining to the proprietors of the shops I frequent before the season actually begins. And Baby It’s Cold Outside hardly seems appropriate for public airing since it’s subject is, at the very least, questionable…as in she asks, “Say, what’s in this drink?” What indeed?
petermoulton — Specifically as sung by Bing Crosby and David Bowie from a BC seasonal special many years ago. That’s the David Bowie, glam rocker and man who fell to Earth. He must have needed money badly.
Hey, I consider it entirely appropriate to complain about inflicting Will Ferrell on innocent kids.
I like how he asks these questions as if there’s a special Christian answer. Apparently “because Jesus was born around this time, maybe” is a better justification for gift-giving than “because it’s getting dark and cold and lonely and people tend to be a little hungrier and needier than they are in other seasons.”
christmas has as much to do with celebrating jesus as the fourth of july has to do with celebrating caeser. the santaclausians picked an arbitrary date for the birth of the tooth fairy, which coincided with (and thus coopted) existing holidays celebrated in other religions. and no matter what the easterbunnians say, there is nothing particularly religious about celebrating a season of giving the last couple of weeks of the year.
There actually has been a war on Christmas in this country, and it was very successful.
It was also waged by the Puritans, the ideological ancestors of the idiots whinging about a war on Christmas today. Because history is ironic as hell.
microraptor@26, robro@28,
Count me in!
Maybe it is time that we destroyed Christmas. People clearly just can’t be trusted with it.
I don’t want to hear anything, ANYTHING, about Christmas 2016, not even how to destroy it, before late November, 2016, at the earliest.
PZ, why the hell are you torturing us with drivel Bill “We Catholics Only Have 6 Supreme Court Justices! WAAAAAH!” Donohue first published in 2004?1?1?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1296395/posts
We demand fresh Christian drivel!