Apparently it’s not enough that the mainstream media, TV media, local media, national media, and all other possible media spend interminable amounts of resources calling attention to the fact that Kentucky is southbound off the charts as far as everything from obesity to smoking to pill-popping to low graduation rates to a bad football season is concerned. Oh no...without any known provocation Governor Beshear had to add to that list his recent directive that the official state Christmas tree was no longer to be called a Christmas tree; rather, it must be referenced as a HOLIDAY TREE.
It’s bad...bad...bad when Kentucky makes the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News but that’s just what happened on Thursday evening when the garrulous Irishman poked fun at the Kentucky guv, who has actually had the good sense to reverse himself...or at least enough gumption to realize that a few hundred thousand people in his state take Christmas seriously, even if only as a time to celebrate whether for the right reasons or not. He might even have thought about 2011 and the fact that Kentuckians might not appreciate a governor who disses Christmas, and might even dis him right out of the catbird seat, if not for religious reasons, perhaps for not having enough common sense to run the state.
After all, why pick a totally unnecessary fight with the whole state? Right in the middle of a battle with the State Senate over slots, casinos, and state bankruptcy, the guv – obviously on a very slow day at the capital – decides to do away with probably the highest profile and most religiously significant symbol of the whole year. It’s perfectly obvious, since there was no indication that the guv had an extremely high fever accruing to perhaps the swine flu and driving him to distraction, that Beshear fell under an attack of the (gasp) Diversity Syndrome, which has as its most defining and deadly virus/bacterium/protoplasm/whatever the infectious cell called by its Latin term MINORITUM RULIUM.
Face it! If as much as .000005% of the Kentucky population (about 20 folks) doesn’t like the term Christmas, the term just has to go, lest those 20 folks feel like a rhinoceros has been driven up their respective noses. Trauma like that can be very serious...enough to make a democrat suffer rigor mortis if anyone even suggests that the Big O doesn’t jog on the Potomac on the rare occasions he isn’t on Air Force One.
One wonders if the guv might be considering taking the cross out of Holy Week since it recognizes the death of Christ just as the Christmas tree remarks his birth. After all, other people (thieves and murderers) were put to death on the cross, negating any religious significance, just as the Christmas tree might have a slightly secular flavor to it.
Or, why put American flags on the graves of former military folks on Memorial Day since that’s plainly discriminatory vis-a-vis all the other residents of the cemetery who were not veterans ere their demises? Indeed, the act of placing those flags even discriminates against the living, just as the tombstones do. Fairness is fairness and diversity demands lockstep in recognizing the value of MINORITUM RULIUM. It’s a cinch that through the millennia of history a lot more people have died than are alive today, so why should that majority exert any sort of recognition over today’s living minority? One can only be thankful that the deceased do not have access to M-16s to make a point about those flags and stones.
Maybe the guv didn’t catch it last year when Washington’s governor, Christine Gregoire, allowed a small rabid group of atheists to place a display next to the nativity scene in the capital. It read in part: "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." The atheists have their Solstice Parties in December (in the summer, too) and Christians haven’t been in the news for constructing nativity scenes next to their Solstice Trees, currently for sale by American Atheists as advertised on the Internet for $20.00. Nobody cares if they greet each other with a “Merry God-Is-Dead,” so what’s the big deal?
Or...perhaps the guv didn’t notice what happened when WalMart dissed Christmas a few years ago, favoring the “Happy Holidays” approach. That little mistake was redressed in 2006 and now Christmas is a big deal. Boycotts can be very convincing.
This is not to say that groups not favoring or appreciating symbols of Christmas should not make their point. They have their own observances and are welcome to them by Christians who, for the most part at least (nutcases in every group, of course), make no objections. Jews have Hanukkah, with their Menorah as symbol, Muslims have Ramadan, possibly with a sword as symbol, and atheists can go climb their Solstice Trees (or telephone poles if they like) and scream that Abraham was a bullfrog and Jesus an itinerant, money-grabbing TV evangelist.
So...a word to Governor Beshear might be in order, namely, “Thanks for recognizing a significant error in judgment and please – on a slow day in the capital – try video games or a round of golf or watch a program of commercials interspersed by a football game, but don’t – REPEAT – don’t mess with Christmas again!”
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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