Why I Hate the Baby Jesus, pt. 1

It's that time again, folks. The calendar has rolled its way past Thanksgiving, that quintessentially American holiday, with the heaviest driving day of the year, a day of compulsory gluttony, and a rabid festival of consumerism coming one after the another, and on toward the happiest season of all: the War on Christmas.

There's a lot to be learned from how we as a country handle Thanksgiving, but for my money the supposed secularist effort to banish the Baby Jesus and the Christian reaction to same constitute the most insipid display in the tawdry pageant that is American public life. In recent years secularists have mounted efforts to remove references to God and other religious symbols from government property, and religious conservatives have reacted with cries of discrimination. The secularist argument is that setting up nativity scenes outside town halls, displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and printing "In God We Trust" on our money all constitute endorsement of the Christian religion by the government in violation of the First Amendment. Conservatives assert that there is a strong tradition of public endorsement of religion in this country and that barring such displays violates their right to free speech.

That argument is incoherent. How does a lack of state endorsement impinge on a private citizen's freedom of belief? Does their brand of Christianity depend on affirmation from the state? Where is that in the bible? These folks can set up their creches on private property, no questions asked.

If these folks need Uncle Sam's stamp of approval on their beliefs, theirs is a very weak faith indeed. In part the First Amendment is intended to prevent churches from becoming dependent on the state. City hall doesn't force these people to wave the flag in their church or say the national anthem. They can't even force people to do those things in public, at least not since 1943. That's what it's all about: the state doesn't meddle with your beliefs, and it doesn't use its resources to promote your beliefs over anybody else's.

I have no problem with Christians doing their Christmas thing in their churches or their homes. More power to them. I don't even have a problem with public space being rented or otherwise reserved for Christmas-related functions. As long as any other group has the same opportunity to use the space for their purposes, public places are fair game. But we have to draw the line at the government itself setting up Christian imagery and overseeing specifically religious observances. That's just not what the government does.