Oh, holiday tree?

Dallas Morning News | Mark Davis:

"The proper battle is to make advertisers and schools comfortable with the C-word again. Seeing it in store signs and catalogs and hearing it from the lips of third-graders in a Christmas concert are not the drumbeat of proselytization; it is the acknowledgment of this season's central wish of peace and good will."

It has become politically incorrect to extend someone a friendly greeting of "Happy Holidays." There is an orchestrated campaign by religious conservatives to insist that the standard greeting of this time of year be "Merry Christmas". I'm sure that many good people will oblige in order not to unwittingly offend. Fine. Political correctness does, after all, serve a purpose.

And if the religious conservatives want to pressure retailers into featuring their religious preferences, that's how our free market system works, I guess. I don't like to see religious litmus tests for shopping, recreation, voting, etc., but the laws of the land don't forbid it, currently. I predict that eventually society will see the harm that such sectarian discrimination leads to and passes laws to forbid it. If so, it will be ironic that religious conservatives trigger even more government intrusiveness into the private sector.

Another irony about the current campaign is that a generation ago, some Christians complained about the commercialization of Christmas. They objected to using the occasion of Christ's birth to sell everything from toys to toasters. Decorating stores with Christmas trees and wreathes and garlands and advertisements wishing everyone a "Merry Christmas" was considered disrespectful then. Ironically, today, many Christians are taking offense as stores tone down the religious tie-in of their commercial advertising. Who would have thought that the old slogan "Put Christ back in Christmas" would become a call for merchants to commercialize the heck out of the birth of Jesus again, with churchgoers leading the charge?