Yellow Dog

The conservative American Family Association and conservative talk radio, along with Fox News (most notably, Bill O'Lielly), have begun a campaign to target retailers who are using "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" (hilariously, Fox's own website advertised "holiday" ornaments--oops).

While it's befuddling that conservatives would want to align a spiritual holiday with crass commercialism (shouldn't they be happy that there's some separation between the material and the religious, thus preserving a reverance for the true meaning of Christmas?) and less befuddling that they would demonstrate intolerance for religious diversity, it's probably more likely that they are trying to distract from the Republican Congress' Christmas gift to the American people: 50 billion dollar cuts in child support enforcement, student loans, medicaid, food stamp benefits, and free lunches at schools.

From John Podesta:

If Speaker Hastert really wants to put Christ back into Christmas, he should start by joining a long list of religious leaders in supporting a budget that isn’t balanced on the back of the poorest and most vulnerable.

Before the House went on Thanksgiving break, it passed $50 billion in spending cuts that target millions of poor and working-class Americans. The budget’s Medicaid provisions “would allow state governments to impose co-payments even on the poorest beneficiaries for emergency room visits for non-emergency health problems and for drug prescriptions not on a list of preferred treatments.” The Congressional Budget Office estimated the House bill “would cut food stamp benefits by about $45 a month for 225,000 people” and that 40,000 children would lose their eligibility for free meals at school. At the same time, conservatives are seeking to “extend several of Mr. Bush’s biggest tax cuts, including those on stock dividends and capital gains” — over half of the benefits from those cuts go to people earning over $1 million per year.

Hastert should heed the true spirit of Christ by caring for the vulnerable. As Jesus reminds us in Luke 4:18-20, by following his example we can “bring good news to the poor.”

Instead of silly debates over putting Christ back in Christmas, why don't Christian conservatives work on putting Christ back in Christian by not supporting policymakers that screw the poor? All I want for Christmas is less of this hypocrisy....

Think Progress » Podesta: In Support of Christmas Trees, In Opposition to Budget Cuts Targeting the Vulnerable