In yet another case from the "Not Christian Enough" file, a group called the American Family Association (AFA) has decided that a Gap holiday ad that dares to mention "Solstice" as a winter holiday along with Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza apparently goes too far and justifies a boycott of the store. I would certainly characterize the lyrics from the commercial as insipid, but finding them truly offensive on any other grounds strikes me as over-the-top:
Two, Four, Six, Eight, now’s the time to liberate
Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanza, Go Solstice.
Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go add a tree,
You 86 the rules, you do what feels just right.
Happy do whatever you wanukkah, and to all a cheery night.
Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, go whatever holiday you wanukkah.
"Wanukkah?" Really?
While the copywriter responsible for this abuse of both the English and Hebrew languages should probably be chastised on the grounds of simple illiteracy, I don't understand why it's such a big deal to acknowledge that Christianity isn't the only religious tradition that celebrates a winter holiday. That is, unless one happens to be a histrionic idiot. From AFA's action alert:
Did you notice it? Gap compares Christmas to the pagan holiday called “Solstice.” Solstice is celebrated by Wiccans who practice witchcraft!
The horror! And yes, the bolded text is as it appears in AFA's original article.
In addition to objecting to the lyrics because OMG WITCHCRAFT!!!, apparently AFA has also decided that noting multiple holidays happen around the same time of year is identical to comparing those holidays with one another. This is just plain silly. If I were state that Passover and Easter are both celebrated in the spring, do you really think that any reasonable person would accuse me of comparing the two holidays? I've said nothing about either aside from noting the season during which they are celebrated.
Kind of like the Bible burners, whoever is running AFA seems to have gotten it into their heads that anything deviating from their very strict interpretation of the Christian religion has to be stamped out or at least boycotted on the grounds of... well... actually I have no idea what they're hoping to accomplish. Fortunately most Christians are not this ridiculous and don't find the very existence of non-Christian holidays to be some sort of affront to their beliefs.
So first they get upset because Christmas wasn't being mentioned (in past years), now they are upset because Gap decided to acknowledge other holidays other than just theirs. Gee, I think that someone is still living in the dark ages.
ReplyDeleteI'm rather confused by the recent furor over stores saying "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" rather than "Merry Christmas." It's possible that it's just a Minnesota thing but most of the stores out here have done so since I was a small child and I turned 40 this year. Is that not the case in other parts of the country? Did stores elsewhere stop using "Merry Christmas" only recently?
ReplyDeleteI eagerly await their boycott of all schools and other civic buildings that dare refer to the days of the week by their pagan names, such as Wednesday, Thursday etc - unless of course they're happy having their children brought up to unthinkingly dedicate one-seventh of their entire lives to Woden, Thor, et al?
ReplyDeleteI mean really - if you're going to be an extremist, at least be a PROPER one!