Texas, of course, isn’t the only place where the religious right is promoting the lie that Christmas is under attack by alleged Christian haters and secularists. Americans United for Separation of Church and State takes a look at how the religious right has distorted — or just plain made up — stories supposedly showing Christmas is under siege. AU’s Rob Boston notes one example — a list of scare stories promoted by FOX News (who else?) in 2005:
What we found, in every case, was that relevant facts had been omitted or that the stories were fictitious. For example, one school in Texas was accused of ordering students not to wear red and green clothes during the month of December. When I called the school, an official there just laughed. There was no such policy in place, but the school was getting so many calls on the matter it actually had to post a statement on its Web site debunking it.
Things got a little testy when I challenged the veracity of Gibson and the entire Fox network. In fact, we ended up screaming at one another. It was perhaps not my finest moment on television, but I have to admit I was angry. Hard-working people in the public schools were being slimed because some folks dislike public education and have an axe to grind.
As we’ve pointed out before, the ‘war on Christmas” nonsense is little more than a cynical fundraising gimmick for far-right groups. In fact, the religious right has even found a way to commercialize it.
