Nothing appears to escape debate in US society these days. Whether it's abortion rights, tax cuts, nudity on television or the right to own a gun, every topics fuels controversy.
Now, not even Christmas is above the fray.
PHOTO: EPA
Few people complain about having a day off or the economic value of the year-end retail frenzy. But battle lines are increasingly drawn over how to observe the holiday in public settings. Even the proper greeting for the season is in dispute, far beyond the difference between the US "Merry Christmas" and the British-style "Happy Christmas."
When US President George W. Bush, himself a devout Christian, offered a holiday greeting to close out his final press conference this year, he was careful to be religiously neutral.
"I truly wish everybody a happy holidays," Bush said.
The bland "happy holidays" has emerged as the most popular and safest way to greet people in December. Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the US, orders its employees to use the phrase to customers.
In the politically correct US, politicians and corporations alike take no chances when it comes to votes or dollars. While "Merry Christmas" might be suitable to Christians, it may not fit well with Jews, Muslims or those of other faiths.
"`Happy holidays' is a pleasant greeting that applies to everyone," Sharon Weber said, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart. She added that daily, hundreds of thousands of costumers roll through the company's nationwide stores during the holiday season.
But the debate goes much further than politics or commercialism. In many cases, it stretches to the roots of US society, sometimes ending up in the courts.
For years, public schools, trying to comply with the US Constitution's separation of church and state, have been careful about how their teachers celebrate Christmas with their students, often banning songs or lessons that make explicit references to Christmas, Jesus Christ or even God.
One school chorus in Chicago, for example sang We Wish You a Swinging Holiday instead of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, The New York Times reported.
Another school wouldn't allow students to sing Silent Night.
"It's political correctness run amok," said Lynn Mistretta, who launched www.bringbackchristmas.com with another school mother in Scarborough, Maine.
"I'm not for offending anyone, but we're excluding everyone, and everyone feels rotten about it," she told The New York Times.
Fed up, Christians have begun to fight back, perhaps even bolstered by the conservative Bush's re-election last month. One pastor in Raleigh, North Carolina urged residents to shop only at stores with "Merry Christmas" signs.
Christians have grown annoyed that in some cases "Christmas trees" are being called "community trees," or that some cities have banned Nativity displays from public grounds.
As the two extremes butt heads, others are seeking a reasonable middle ground that allows different groups to celebrate their own traditions without pressuring those holding different beliefs.
"Some people see this as a marvelous opportunity to heat up the culture war," Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center, told The New York Times.
"It's an opportunity to trigger deeper emotion and frustration that are not really about Merry Christmas, but about what kind of country we are."
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
RSS