WASHINGTON — Christmas is over, and fortunately no one was
hurt. Every year it seems the holiday becomes more divisive, which
seems odd. More than 80% of our fellow Americans consider the
holiday a holy day, the day on which Jesus was born. It is supposed
to be a time of peace. Yet for many years now it has become a time
for wrangling over what decorative symbols are allowed in what
public settings.
I have followed these disputes assiduously and watched an ever
wider array of Christmas decorations become malum
prohibitum. At first it was the nativity scene, the
traditional envisagement of the site of Jesus’ birth: a
straw-strewn stable, Mary and Joseph looking prayerfully into a
primitive crib wherein the divine infant lies, face beaming out,
hands raised up, palms upward. There are barnyard animals about.
Possibly an angel is overhead, and the shepherds and three kings
mentioned in Scripture have arrived.
I actually doubt that more than a tiny minority of
non-Christians found these scenes irritating or alarming. Actually
— and bearing in mind the almost limitless capacity of mankind to
complain — I would guess that for every non-Christian who took
offense at a nativity scene there were Christians too who took
offense. For instance, there might be Christian pedants offended by
historical inaccuracies in the scene. There might also be an
occasional Christian siding with the separation-of-Church-and-state
rigorists and equally fearful that a nativity scene on public
property puts the nation on a slippery slope to theocracy. As a
consequence of all these complainants the once-unexceptional
nativity scene has become X-rated.
Other traditional Christmas decorations are on the way out too,
though their religious content is often nil. We can all understand
why angels might be controversial. But increasingly Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer has been the subject of disputes and Santa Claus
too. I was in Chicago, Illinois, a week or two before Christmas and
found that these time-honored Christmas symbols have been replaced
by tin soldiers, Raggedy Ann dolls, and mysterious conical-shaped
trees covered with colored lights. In three days I saw not one
Rudolph and only an occasional Santa. Yet I spied an infinitude of
these idiotic trees, Raggedy Ann dolls, and tin soldiers. Ever the
provocateur, I feigned mild indignation over a squad of tin
soldiers deployed in the lobby of a posh hotel. The concierge
deferred to me immediately, tremulous with alarm. I suspect he
feared that I might be a member of America’s powerful anti-war
movement, ready to charge him with militarizing “the holidays.”
Evidence of how controversial Christmas has become can be seen
by comparing two votes in the House of Representatives, the October
vote on Ramadan and the December vote on Christmas. The House
resolution on Ramadan sailed through 376 to 0. The resolution on
Christmas got 372 votes, but 9 Democrats opposed the measure,
though they had earlier favored Ramadan. Ten Democrats denied the
resolution by only voting “present,” and 40 failed to vote either
way. Possibly they were shopping.
Doubtless the opponents of Christmas are moved by various
discrete motives. Some are bigots or cranks. Some are truly alarmed
by Christian fervor in the dead of winter. To be sure, some
probably do fear that signs of any religion will put us on a
slippery slope to theocracy. But I also see another motive, a
motive that has animated the most egregious public nuisances at
large in recent American history, the liberal activist.
The liberal activist aspires to be an agent of “Progress.” In
fact, the liberal activist, whether male or female, often calls
himself a Progressive. Yet through the years you will spot no
coherent system of political values motivating liberal reforms.
Sometimes the liberals might be motivated by liberty or equality or
fraternity, but sometimes they are not. They may be against
censorship, but sometimes dirty words offend the feminists among
them and ethnic slurs arouse other of their co-conspirators.
There is, however, one political value that can be discerned
motivating every one of their legendary reforms, from the ambitious
(world peace) to the trivial (the criminalization of trans fats).
That value is to disturb one’s neighbor, to disturb the peace. In
all civilized criminal codes such behavior constitutes a
misdemeanor. Yet it is at the heart of the liberal project.
Disturbing the peace is, I believe, at the heart of rendering
Christmas controversial. Surely disturbing the peace was the motive
on the House floor when Ramadan and Christmas came to a vote. All
the opponents of Christmas were liberals. Their adolescent
complaint denies all Americans the opportunity to contemplate
peacefully what is conceivably Western civilization’s greatest
event.
