Why I Hate the Baby Jesus, pt. 3

Some jerkoff stole the Baby Jesus from a Nativity display on Independence Mall. No, I didn't do it.

I argue that the real problem in this situation is that the Nativity scene is on public property at all. But if someone nicked JC from the display as a protest, I don't see what they think they're going to achieve. Insofar as there is an atheist "cause," that cause isn't being advanced by vandalizing other people's religious pageants.

Atheists, of course, aren't a group in the vein of the Ancient Order of Hibernians of the Knights of Columbus, the two organizations behind the creche display. There is a secular movement which opposes this kind of tableau, and their effort to end the practice is the closest thing to a unified atheist cause. That cause is not served by publicly disprespecting sacred religious imagery, no matter how gag-inducing a blond-haired, blue-eyed Baby Jesus is to any intelligent person. That only encourages Catholics and other Christians rally around their curiously Aryan-looking Savior. If we believe in the First Amendment, we have to give these people the respect they deserve.

That respect consists of allowing them to observe their holidays unmolested on private property. This Christ heist makes the issue seem personal, which can only turn public opinion against the small, secular minority. We look petty. We look mean. We don't look like a mature and rational group of people with the Constitution on our side.

All of that having been said, there is precisely zero evidence that this vandalism was perpetrated by an angry atheist. It might have been an enraged Protestant evangelical on some kind of anti-Catholic jag. It could have been a Jew, angry about being libeled for all those centuries. It might have been a Republican- they wander the streets at night looking for mischief, you know. It could have been a junkie looking for something to sell to support his drug habit. Hell, maybe it was a stoner who thought it would be awesome to have an Aryan Jesus in his room. We have no way of knowing.

None of those is particularly likely, but how many atheists are there, really? If we were the majority, things would already be set up our way, wouldn't they?