Anti-Christian Hostility Driving 'War on Christmas,' Attorney Says
by Jim Brown
December 7, 2005
(AgapePress) - - A Christian attorney says recent acts of censorship indicate Christmas is under attack in public schools across the United States.One Ohio high school principal, for example, recently renamed the school's Christmas tree and concert a "holiday tree" and a "holiday concert." Similarly, a Missouri school superintendent informed fine arts teachers in his district that an upcoming winter assembly may not include "direct references to Christmas or the birth of Jesus," and a Wisconsin school district has banned all Christian Christmas songs.
Such phenomena are occurring not only in primary and secondary public schools, but also at the college level. Controversy recently erupted at Auburn University in Texas when the student government association re-dubbed its Christmas tree a "holiday tree."
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Steve Crampton |
Steve Crampton, chief counsel with the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, takes issue with those who argue there is no "war against Christmas" going on. "They are flat wrong," he says, "and to miss what is happening in our public schools and in the public square -- even in our so-called places of public accommodation, such as the department stores during the Christmas season -- is to be completely blind to the culture war that's raging around us."The hostility against Christianity that Crampton asserts has "been under the surface for years" has finally boiled over, he contends, and secularists are making no bones about their attempts to blot out all religious meaning associated with the holiday. He feels such acts of censorship indicate that public school officials have run amok with hypocrisy.
"When a public entity such as these high schools takes the extreme position that we can't even use the name 'Christmas,' let alone 'Jesus Christ,' how else can you describe it other than censorship?" the pro-family attorney asks. He says these public education officials' attempt to strip every vestige of Christian faith from the holiday represents "a running away, not only from our own history and tradition but from the very principles of tolerance that they are espousing on the other side of their mouth."
Crampton says the rising incidence of Christmas censorship is an indication that the culture war continues to rage (See related commentary). He suggests that anyone who denies this fact is either blind to an ever-mounting body of evidence or has been lulled into a false sense of complacency.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
