Help! Barack Obama is taking away our religious faith!
Dear Rick Perry and other fundamentalists: if you feel that your faith is being threatened by Barry Obama, then your faith is pathetically weak. Your problem, not mine and definitely not Barry’s.
To correct the idiot and any of the lowest common denominators in the GOP base who believe him, though: kids can openly celebrate Christmas, and they can pray in school all they want as long as it’s not disrupting other students. What these dolts want is school-sanctioned prayer, which is a SPECIAL RIGHT, not a constitutional right.
It’s weird when the War on Christmas starts hitting itself. Join me in asking these Michigan wingnuts, “Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?”
A Michigan music teacher’s decision to censor the word “gay” from a traditional Christmas carol is being met with a frosty response.
The teacher, who has not yet been named in any of the published reports, allegedly removed “gay” from “Deck The Halls” after 1st and 2nd grade students kept giggling during preparations for a Christmas concert at Cherry Knoll Elementary School in Traverse City. Instead of the traditional lyric, the students were taught to sing “don we now our bright apparel,” according to UpNorthLive.com.
So the kids giggled, and instead of taking a moment to have an educational conversation with the children about words having multiple meanings, this alleged “educator” freaked out and removed the word, replacing it with “bright.”
Confusing still, because the sun is “bright,” but “bright” can also refer to the intelligence of a 1st grader, or the sound of certain Japanese grand pianos. Words is hard!
Anyway, people’s reactions on the school’s Facebook page are hilarious:
And again, I repeat, words is hard! And also, people is dumb. Luckily, happy ending:
As UpNorthLive.com notes, however, Principal Chris Parker has said he is disappointed in the music teacher’s decision to change the lyrics to the song, and the students are, in fact, now back to singing the original version.
The best part of the holiday season is that everyone is generally in a good mood and works a little harder at getting along with their neighbors. (Except on Black Friday, where neighbors will bite through their neighbor’s buttocks to get a flat screen TV before they are all gone.)
One exception to the jolly feel-good smiles and warmth is the opportunistic power grab by fundamentalists who selfishly want to make Christmas all about them — and humiliate and exclude those who don’t want to turn the holiday into an excuse to foist sectarianism and bitterness into the public square.
Evan pointed out earlier today that the first attempt to exploit Christmas already took place — by Liberty Counsel’s Matt “Bam Bam” Barber. There will be more such attempts to shamelessly lie about phantom attacks on the holiday and disingenuously appropriate Christmas for profit or political gain. Don’t let the fundies fool you. Not only do they not own this holiday — they don’t even know the history of it. Here is a short article I wrote last year on the topic:
The New York Times had an interesting piece by Adam Goodheart that touched on the origins of Christmas in America. You might be surprised to find that in 19th century America, the holiday had little religious significance compared to today:
Culturally, Christmas in 1860 was also at a strange transition point. In many parts of America, it was still celebrated as a riotous old pagan Saturnalia: working-class revelers known as “callithumpians” paraded through the streets in drag or blackface (sometimes both), firing off guns and starting street brawls, defying annual attempts by the city fathers to ban Christmas, as it were.
But commercialized, mass-market Yule was already coming into its own. An article in the New York Herald analyzed Christmas retail trends much as a newspaper today might do. (Candy sales were up compared to the previous December, while jewelry sales were down: consumers, anxious about the political news, were economizing on gifts.)
American Christmases in the mid-19th century do not seem to have had much religious significance – neither for the callithumpians, nor the proto-shopaholics, nor anyone else. Many, if not most, Protestant churches did not even have Christmas services, though some staged holiday parties, pageants, and “entertainments.” The New-York Tribune remarked in 1860 that only gradually was the festival starting to become as widely observed as more important national celebrations like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Day.
These very interesting historical facts seem to run counter to the overbearing fundamentalists who scold most Americans for having fun on Christmas. It seems, like in every other aspect of life, the uptight fundies are factually wrong and have unnecessarily politicized this holiday.
So, have a great time this Christmas and don’t let self-righteous hypocrites use guilt to ruin your holiday. Eat, drink, and be merry — like Christmas was meant to be. Like it was in the good old days.
Surprise, everybody, it’s The Holidays [I just victimized a buncha Fundamentalists right there, I sure did], which means that while the normal people of America are gearing up for some sort of The Holidays festivities [even Christmas!], wingnuts have reached the point in their liturgical calendar where they pause their usual whining and give thanksgive to the poorsimply stop yammering for five minutes to give the other 85% of the country a moment of respite ratchet up their whining about one particular fake issue: the liberals and atheists and gays and educated people who supposedly want to steal Christmas from them. Matt Barber decided to get a head start:
One conservative attorney says he has no sympathy for the atheists who have launched a holiday advertising campaign to promote their stance and attack Christians.
The billboard and newspaper ads that read “Bias Against Atheists is Naughty, Not Nice” are being placed in towns where atheists have made an effort to push religion out of the public arena.
“I have very little sympathy for atheists, the ones who are perpetrating anti-Christian bias,” admits Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel Action. “And when they receive a little push-back and people point out the reality that we are a Christian nation, they get in a huff.”
Let us break down his stupidity in three easy sentences:
1. Christians are a majority in this country, and atheists are simply making their voices heard. This is not, in and of itself, a crime against Christianity.
2. The billboards in question actually directly reference Christmas, which Matt Barber may be surprised to find out that many if not most atheists celebrate.
3. No, the United States is a secular nation which happens to be majority Christian, though those numbers are slipping every year. Only the willfully ignorant actually believe this is a “Christian nation.”
One more thing:
“It kind of falls on deaf ears when they start to play the victim card here, when atheist organizations across the United States like the ACLU and People for the American Way have religious liberty in their crosshairs,” the attorney contends.
Oh, those mean terrible atheists, who want to prevent Fundamentalist Christians from exercising rights that the Constitution never actually granted them in the first place. I mean, to backwards yokels like failed Allstate employee Matt Barber, it is a God-given [and therefore Constitutional, because they don't really understand how America works] right to freely discriminate against and exercise bigotry against anyone who is different from them, and that decidedly includes atheists.
Anyway, welcome to The Holidays, Truth Wins Out readers, and please be aware that by enjoying them, however you enjoy them, you are making wingnuts like Matt Barber burst out of their suspenders in rage-filled jealousy and bitterness, as they just aren’t very happy people.
The New York Times had an interesting piece today by Adam Goodheart that touched on the origins of Christmas in America. You might be surprised to find that in 19th century America, the holiday had little religious significance compared to today:
Culturally, Christmas in 1860 was also at a strange transition point. In many parts of America, it was still celebrated as a riotous old pagan Saturnalia: working-class revelers known as “callithumpians” paraded through the streets in drag or blackface (sometimes both), firing off guns and starting street brawls, defying annual attempts by the city fathers to ban Christmas, as it were.
But commercialized, mass-market Yule was already coming into its own. An article in the New York Herald analyzed Christmas retail trends much as a newspaper today might do. (Candy sales were up compared to the previous December, while jewelry sales were down: consumers, anxious about the political news, were economizing on gifts.)
American Christmases in the mid-19th century do not seem to have had much religious significance – neither for the callithumpians, nor the proto-shopaholics, nor anyone else. Many, if not most, Protestant churches did not even have Christmas services, though some staged holiday parties, pageants, and “entertainments.” The New-York Tribune remarked in 1860 that only gradually was the festival starting to become as widely observed as more important national celebrations like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Day.
These very interesting historical facts seem to run counter to the overbearing fundamentalists who scold most Americans for having fun on Christmas. It seems, like in every other aspect of life, the uptight fundies are factually wrong and have unnecessarily politicized this holiday.
So, have a great time this Christmas and don’t let self-righteous hypocrites use guilt to ruin your holiday. Eat, drink, and be merry — like Christmas was meant to be. Like it was in the good old days.
Music time, and I literally have no idea what I want to start the Random Ten with this week. Not a clue. So I guess we’ll start with this really, really great song I rediscovered this week by the Crash Test Dummies, who my mom used to make fun of mercilessly, which, you know, not cool, yo. ”God Shuffled His Feet” is a seriously amazing song and people should recognize. And then, okay fine, it’s Christmas, fine fine fine. My favorite Christmas song is “Little Drummer Boy,” hands down, and my two favorite versions come from Josh Groban and from Tori Amos. Two very, very different takes on the song. So there you have it, Crash Test Dummies, some Christmas, hit shuffle, listen to songs, find out where we are ten songs later, goodbye. Ready set go! More videos after the jump.
N.B. I know our readers are of a lot of faiths or none at all, but if you have a problem with me posting Christmas songs, just know that you’re either supporting Christmas, or you’re part of the War on Christmas! No, I am kidding. Goodness, I’m an atheist. But feel free to post songs that mean something to you this time of the year in the comments and stuff!
I also love Tori’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Totally makes me cry, but you know. So here’s that, too. Then the shuffle.
1. Nine Inch Nails – “Something I Can Never Have”
2. Aimee Mann – “She Really Wants You”
3. Annuals – “Hot Night Hounds”
4. Leonard Bernstein: Arias and Barcarolles – 8. Nachspiel (Postlude)
5. The Cinematic Orchestra ft. Fontella Bass – “Breathe”
6. Jill Sobule – “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart”
7. Joan Osborne – “Dracula Moon”
8. RENT, Original Broadway Cast – “Halloween”
9. Lucinda Williams – “Blue”
10. Katie Herzig – “Shovel”
Yay, Katie Herzig again! Seriously, she’s one of my favorite discoveries of the past year. Also remember, just because I don’t post all the videos doesn’t mean the links above aren’t awesome. I’m talking about the Annuals song, and the Nine Inch Nails song [that one's Christmassy], and the Lucinda Williams song.
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Bryan Fischer was crying and hiding under stuff because he thought he saw a gay soldier ogling him in the kitchen.
So now, Bryan Fischer sez that, despite his earlier lies about gays being Nazis and Nazis being gays and gays being overly brutal and stuff, gays are actually “nancy-boys” who only join the military to ogle dudes and stuff, and now that DADT is repealed, we won’t be able to join just for the purposes of seeing patriotic dicks like Bryan’s in the shower, and seriously, I’m not kidding, I hope he has a Merry Christmas, because I imagine it’s very hard to enjoy things like holidays when you have so many demons playing hopscotch in your brain:
If a homosexual signs up now, he’s stuck with the whole magilla. Go to your superior officer now and say, hey, I’m a flaming homosexual, I hate the army, let me out of here, the superior officer will say, tough darts, those days are gone. You’re stuck with us now, Nancy-boy.
So, who’s sorry now?
This may be the silver lining in this whole mess. Conservative groups, simply as a public service, may want to sound this message far and wide out of simple, straightforward compassion, just in order to protect potential homosexual soldiers from themselves and from the distressing discovery that they just kissed off a handy exit option that nobody else had.
The more this message resounds, the fewer homosexuals will want to enlist. It’s one thing to be gay, and say, hey, I’ll give it a few weeks and then bail if I don’t like the food, can’t get enough action in the barracks, or thought I’d enjoy ogling male soldiers in the shower more than I did.
Those days are now shortly to be a distant memory for our homosexual friends. They enlist, they’re stuck with the whole program just like everybody else.
In other words, they had preferential treatment and special privileges, a status and privileges and an exit strategy denied to their honest and straight counterparts. And homosexuals just bargained it away. Now, they will discover to their dismay, they’re back to having equal rights instead of special rights.
Man, he is dumber than Peter LaBarbera, who we also wish a Merry, Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brings Peter everything he wants, which is probably something along these lines.
Then the National Organization for Marriage would be GLAD to take your $$$$$$$$$$$.
I mean, really, what part of “Peace on earth, good will to men, unless they’re dirty fags” do you people fail to understand? Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher would like to know, before Maggie goes home to her Hindu husband, with whom she is very unequally yoked, according to The Bible. Remember: that baby in that manger freaking hates gays.
One reason to take heart this holiday season is that, while we know that as anti-gay wingnuts grow smaller in number due to increased education and the fact that the average age of anti-gay wingnuts is 70 or so, they will become more and more extreme, they also will continually weed out even the most marginally intelligent among their ranks, growing dumber and dumber and dumber until they fade into irrelevancy.
In case you weren’t sure, the song was an attempt at humor, but since most of the comedians long ago abandoned bigotry, it sort of falls flat among the portion of the population with an IQ above 70 or so.
As always, for any slow people out there, we are not encouraging people not to help the needy. We are encouraging people to give their money to a more worthy organization than this group of prudish fundamentalists. You already knew that they are quite willing to screw the poor if it involves being nice to gay people in any way, shape or form. Now we find out that they throw brand new, donated toys in the trash when they conflict with their inane “beliefs”:
The Salvation Army says it refuses to distribute Harry Potter and Twilight toys collected for needy children because they’re incompatible with the charity’s Christian beliefs.
The policy has alarmed a Calgarian who volunteered to sift through a southeast warehouse full of unused, donated items and was alarmed when he was told by Salvation Army officials that the two kinds of toys are “disposed of” and not given to other charities.
“I asked if these toys went to another charitable organizations but was told no, that by passing these toys on to another agency for distribution would be supporting these toys,” said the man, who wouldn’t give his name due to his occupation.
[...]
“I was told to withhold a six-inch Harry Potter figure, but when I picked up a plastic M-16, I was told, ‘That’s for the 10-year-olds,’” he said.
“I was shocked…war-themed toys and toys from TV shows and movies with far more violence than Harry Potter and these were considered appropriate toys?”
The Sally Ann refuses to distribute the Twilight and Harry Potter toys because of their wizardry, vampire and werewolf content, said Capt. Pam Goodyear.
Un-frickin-believable.
PZ Myers adds: “I feel so dumb for having ever given that organization anything. I should have been clued in by the frickin’ name that it was run by a gang of puffed-up sanctimonious looneys.”
It’s sort of like the word “family.” When an organization uses that word in their name, nine out of ten times it’s a hate group which works only for the health of a certain, narrowly-defined concept of “family,” while actively seeking to hurt other families.
The best part of the holiday season is that everyone is generally in a good mood and works a little harder at getting along with their neighbors. (Except on Black Friday, where neighbors will bite through their neighbor’s buttocks to get a flat screen TV before they are all gone.)
