During The Daily Show’s first segment last night, Jon Stewart went after Fox News for again turning the Holiday Season into a trumped up culture clash that Fox insists on describing as “The War on Christmas.” Once again, blogger doesn’t seem to be able to embed video from The Daily Show but you can watch it here. (It really is very funny.)
As always, right-wingers’ complaints about their so-called ‘War on Christmas’ devolve to an assertion that “America is Christian nation” and – when called upon to defend this patently untrue statement – they point to the Pilgrims, who settled in New England seeking ‘religious freedom.’
(For the record, Americans may be a Christian people – by and large – but that does not make us a Christian nation. The First Amendment makes clear that the government is to neither establish a religion nor to interfere with its citizens’ religious observances. Our governing document, in other words, is religion neutral. Of course, being ‘neutral toward’ religion is not the same as being ‘hostile toward’ religion.)
But hearing this sort of stuff always sticks in my craw, because it is very, very stupid. I can never help but think that the people who make this argument betray that they never acquired more than a Fourth Grade education of American history, and that they should by all rights be embarrassed by their own ignorance. So let me get just a few things off of my chest:
