December 4, 2005
Opinionist: DC Christmas Tree Controversy
On Sundays, DCist publishes opinion pieces about life in D.C. The opinions below belong entirely to the author, who, in this case, is reader Timothy Ebner. To add your opinion to the fray, please email me.
Leave it to our Capitol City to make politics out of the holiday season. Apparently political correctness now goes as far as Christmas trees or should I say Holiday trees? This year House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) wrote the architect of the Capitol urging that the "Capitol Holiday Tree" return back to the "Capitol Christmas Tree." Other naming rights for trees speak of patriotism and country rather than religious affiliations. The White House Christmas Tree after all is the Nation's tree even though some might recognize Rockefeller's tree as the definitive evergreen. Regardless of any of these naming controversies, haven't we gone over the deep end as far as trees are concerned? These names mean very little to me. After all, I think the only difference between a "Holiday," "Christmas," or "National" tree probably would be the size of the trunk, the types of needles, or the strands of lights. When debates like this arise over the holidays, I find real truth about the season from my good friend Linus in "A Charlie Brown Christmas." He reveals a deeper meaning of the season by saying, "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men." Let's leave the bickering for the Christmas dinner table when the relatives visit. I think all of us can share in the same spirit that this season has to offer.
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Our country made a great stride towards secular government and inclusiveness when we starting refering to the "Holidays" instead of just "Christmas".
I think this Congressional effort to put "Christmas" back into the official lexicon is loaded with the same kind of ill-will and bad-faith that accompanies the current push for "Intelligent Design" in the classroom.
The titanic clash between the forces of secular reason and fundamentalist passion will likely be the defining theme of this century, and this is just one skirmish in the war.
But it's not a "Holiday Tree." It's a Christmas Tree.
It does not represent any holiday other than Christmas.
As a Jew, I'm bothered when people try to "include" Hannukah in Christmasy things.
I certainly don't light a "Holiday Candleabra" for eight days.
If a Christmas tree is offensive, it's offensive whatever it's called. Either get rid of it, or call it what it is. The only holiday the tree represents is Christmas (yes, the Christians swiped it from others earlier, but that's irrelevant to its current meaning), so avoiding the term "Christmas tree" is silly, and only provides fodder for lunatics like O'Reilly who rant about a "war on Christmas".
The situation is complicated by the fact that most of the Christmas-related trappings we see have little or nothing to do with Christianity. I think it's not unreasonable to treat a Christmas tree as different from a manger scene. Christmas is largely a holiday for merchants, not churches. It's more cultural than religious. Perhaps we could start calling the cultural holiday Yule or something (but that wouldn't help the O'Reilly problem).
David - you may light a Menorah, another might have a Christmas Tree... but you aren't the United States Congress or the President.
Personally I'm with "Heathen"; it doesn't matter that it IS a Christmas Tree. It matters far more that Christmas, as associated as it is with Christianity, should not be recognized by the Goverment of a multi-faith population.
Or not until Divali is a Federal Holiday and is celebrated in the Rotunda.
-RS
Bah, it is only a "Christmas" tree if you call it that. Otherwise it is just a tree that you have killed (or replicated) and done up in a very untree like fashion.
The holiday that the tree represents is the one of a guy in a red suit giving little kids presents. By calling it a Holiday Tree, it isn't that we are including other religions, we are excluding all religion.
Besides, the christians took the tree from an older tradition. And so now it has been taken over again, this time by consumerism The true religion of the U.S. ;-)
The tree is synonymous with S.C., not J.C., so let's just leave it at that.
good will to (wo)man ;-)
The only people who are arguing for a so-called holiday tree are sham trolls trying to prove the Republicans' points. My coworker is one of these paranoids who sees "political correctness" (look dude, George Bush Jr is in power- his born again ideas are politically correct and his views define political correctness)! He whined about all these places that were "forbidden" by the "Non-Christians" (presumably Jewish conspiracy or some other racist concept) to not mention christmas including Target. ugh. I checked Target and they have 846 items with the word Christmas. Be very careful whose work you are doing when you take this republican political correctness seriously.
I am a Democrat, hardly a Republican shill, and I really do think that it would be better if no gov't organ had a "Christmas Tree" set up.
-RS
I am a Christian, I would rather the government have a Christmas tree or no tree at all. A 'holiday tree' just doesn't cut it. No faith likes to see their traditions made hollow and separated from their meaning.
Damn your inclusive holiday spirit.
If you are not going to have a Merry Christmas its not my fault you are headed on a politically correct bullet train to hell. I know the lord is offended and I do try to suffer those pagans when they call out to their godless trees and attempt to steal our holiday.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Yule+Tree
Sprinkle liberaly with salt. Kind regards.
Rahul- We can't eliminate the government's involvement with everything that appears to be related to some religion's beliefs. If you've studied the religions of the native americans this can get extremely tricky because of their importance placed on animals and places within the US. Should the Smithsonian remove all art with any god on it, etc. Can you study the middle east in school while eliminating Islam?
I believe in Secular Christmas as professed by Rankin Bass and "A Christmas Story." A wonderful tale of child's hopes and dreams fulfilled by kindly parents in the guise of a gift-giving old man.
And nary a god or son of god in sight, but filled with candy canes, pengiuns, reindeer, the Baby New Year and other long-standing secular Xmas traditions.
Heatmiser : That IS a bit of a strawman. It is not that gov't cannot interact with anything that is related to any religion's beliefs. Judaism and at least Catholicism use wine in the course of their services. I'm hardly saying the government cannot regulate wine (or even subsidise the wine industry).
I am saying, rather, that it should never do anything for the reason of celebrating/advancing/etc a religion. Our foreign aid dollars right now are being channelled by Bush (openly; he bragged about it in a speech last week) to "faith based groups".
Our gov't should, when giving out contracts, consider only three things:
1) who will do the job the best at a reasonable price
2) does the entity in question comply with ALL federal rules for contractors (no religious-discrimination exception for faith-based groups; why are they above the law?)
3) does the entity in question getting the contract provoke negative externalities that could impair our goals? (IE hiring Union Carbide to hand out free food in Bhopal, India would not be appropriate; the negative feelings towards the company would overwhelm any benefits the program would generate for us) Some faith-based groups are ineligible here; aid to a Muslim country that comes from preachers and missionaries will not generate the good will for the US we are looking for. Jesus may get some converts, but that is not the business of the United States.
I agree there is a secular holiday named Christmas. I don't think that it is possible to seperate it from the religious one. Let the gov't celebrate Armistice Day, Emancipation Day, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
After all, what policy purpose is served by federal recognition of Christmas? The alternatives I mentioned at least advance historical literacy in the population.
I did not realize the constitution's seperation of church and state constituted "political correctness." No Christmas Tree, No State Sanctioned Religion and Let's Makes the Feds take a day off on X-mas.
Rahul... I am with Heatmiser. First off, Christmas has already been drug through the streets and stomp on. It no longer has the influence of religion of all, and is considered just another holiday that the banks are closed. The Jews have Hannakuh, Muslims have Ramadan, there is kwanza in Africa. Christians should get their CHRISTMAS! To me, this is a disgrace that all Americans should be ashamed of. And for those that don't belong to any of those groups, then they can start their own holiday. It is their own choice for not belonging to another group or faith (can I say that, or is it politically incorrect?). Why is it that only Christmas is under wraps? Why don't we make a big deal about the Jewish holiday? It makes me uncomfortable and my family shouldn't have to deal with seeing a menorah in the window across the street. However, if they would but call it a holiday candlestick, I would allow their traditions to continue. How selfcentered, how selfish does that seem to you? Who do I think I am?
As far as the government goes, by expecting them to remain out of religion is expecting them to yet distance themselves from the communities of America. Face it, millions of American's lives revolve around their religion. You know what, this isn't worth it. It won't even make you think about the situation at hand. All I have to say is LONG LIVE THE CHRISTMAS TREES!!!
Ross,
Africa has kwanza? No, Kwanza was created in the 60s for African Americans. Africa is made up of many nation states with diverse peoples and cultures with their own traditions.
Christmas is an important religious and secular holiday. As far as my faith goes I'm currently celebrating Advent but as far as my credit card goes I'm currently celebrating Christmas. What other holiday do I and others feel the pressure to buy people I love, and people I really don't like, stuff. The Christmas season is an important period for our economy and the economy of countries that don't even celebrate it but produce the crap that we do use to celebrate it. No other holiday, not Washington's Birthday, not Valentines Day, not Mother's Father's Grandparent's Day gets people in the stores making up nearly half of all of a business' yearly sales.
Oh and I did the "Christmas" seach on the Target website. Yeah, many items come up but in their listed titles few actually have "Christmas". "Christmas" might be attached as some meta tag 'cause it sure as hell ain't in the title. Target doesn't come out and even acknowledge that the "season" is Christmas. There is lot's of Christmas imagery the word "Christmas" does not appear on the main site. "Holiday" and "Season" show up. Will I hold that against them?
The point is, and the point of separating church and state, is that those who do not celebrate a religion should not be forced into celebrating, or feel like they are less of an American because they do not celebrate.
I am Jewish, I celebrate Jewish holidays. I do not want to celebrate even a secularized Christmas because even secularized it is about Christ and does not involve me or my ancestors.
Have your Christmas tree but don't make it the "National Christmas tree" because the Nation shouldn't celebrate any religious holidays. And do not make it a Holiday tree because that is disrespectful to all holidays and religions. And please do not set up a Menorah next to it to include the Jews. No one should "make a big deal out of the Jewish holiday" because it is not a big deal. The only reason Hanukkah is an important holiday is because of its proximity to Christmas. It is a minor holiday celebrating a military victory.
The issue is not whether we call this a Christmas Tree or a Holiday Tree and it bothers me that the real issue here gets ignored. I would be in favor of calling it a Christmas tree except one thing. We have a constitution that calls for separation of church and state. This separation allows everyone including the conservative religious right to practice their faith without fear of interference. It is because of this push to break down this separation that the rest of us resist things that would normally be okay with us like calling it a Christmas Tree. The conservative religious right is largely responsible for the election of our current administration who supports their views. I believe in God and in service to man and I am tired of being brandished a heathen by religious fundamentalists who refuse to acknowledge that we are currently at war with a culture that does not have this separation.