The perceptive eyes of Bill O'Reilly and the Reverend Jerry Falwell have once again foiled the liberal plot to sabotage the "Christmas" season, and it looks as if once again my fellow left-wingers and I will have no choice but to set aside our pagan secularism and worship the coming of the "Savior" this December.
As many of you may have heard, Falwell recently launched his "Friend or Foe of Christmas Campaign" to determine, it seems, who will be getting lumps of coal in their stockings and who will be the lucky few waking up Christmas morning to find a tree-full of those little green Bibles that those creepy men shove in your face outside of LaFortune. In actuality, Falwell is attempting to fight back against the major corporations and local government bodies who have boldly chosen to take a shot at J.C. this December by publicly using the term "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."
Falwell's campaign is already off to a frighteningly fast start. Last Thursday, for instance, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was pressured to change the name of the city's official seasonal evergreen from the "Holiday Tree" to the "Christmas Tree." Yes, even in America's Mecca of tea parties and liberalism, Jesus made his return, presumably prompting thousands of Democrats to flee the city in search of secular shelter elsewhere. Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the leaders of the Christ-Killing Democratic Catholics Movement, was rumored to have expressed his disgust by getting plastered, climbing the "Holiday Tree" and defiantly trying to pass his oversized head off as a big red ornament for the remainder of the holiday season.
The fight then moved to Capitol Hill, where Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert ordered that the "Capitol Holiday Tree" be renamed the "Capitol Christmas Tree." Rumor has it that Senator Joseph Lieberman, an insolent member of the religion that killed Jesus, responded to this change by igniting eight different parts of his body on the Senate floor in order to create the "Capitol Chanukah Menorah."
In the retail market, Wal-Mart, Lowe's and Target have all come under fire from conservative Christian groups for taking the Christ out of Christmas. Target, for instance, a well-documented bastion for secular shoppers, boldly chose not to mention the word "Christmas" in its advertising this year. In response, 600,000 evangelicals trying to get onto Santa's "nice" list signed a petition to boycott the store.
As Bill O'Reilly has stated in defense of this "Pro-Jesus" holiday movement, "The town square is there to reflect the nature of the country, [and] 85 percent of the country is Christian." Now, call me a stat-loving Jesus-hater, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 77 percent of Americans are Christian. (For anyone struggling in the math department, this means that a whopping 23 percent of Americans will one day burn in the fiery chasms of Hell.)
Yes, this is a tragic day for secularism.
For years, we Democrats have battled to remove any glimmer of Jesus' presence from daily life in the United States. Why should we wish you a merry Christmas when we can stick it to the Son of God and wish you a season's greeting? Why rock around the Christmas tree when we can take a jab at the big guy in the sky and rock around the holiday tree? Why kiss someone under the mistletoe when you can fight back against the Bible and have premarital sex under it?
You must remember, of course, that it's not like the Democratic Party gives a damn about the 23 percent of Americans who choose not to celebrate Christmas - like the five million-plus American Jews who celebrate Chanukah. Word has it that Adam Sandler invented that goofy candle holiday a few years ago to promote some song on Saturday Night Live. Kwanzaa? We liberals only pay lip service to that one to keep Jesse Jackson from running away with our entrenched African-American voting bloc. And don't even get me started with the many Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists residing in the United States. (It's not like their minority vote counts on Christian Hill ... I mean Capitol Hill, anyway.)
The real reason we push for "Holiday Trees" and "Season's Greetings" is because we are attempting to kill God. We are simply jealous and embittered because in both 2000 and 2004, the Almighty publicly endorsed George W. Bush for president and helped steal the election from us. So now we're angry - at George and at God. (But really, is there a difference?)
Now, it's our turn to fight back. We're going to steal Christmas for good this year, and unlike that soft, mushy, God-fearing Grinch, were not going to give any of it back in the end.
And why is that? Because we're Democrats - proudly endorsed by Satan since 1932.
Joey Falco is a junior American Studies major. His column appears very other Monday. He can be contacted at jfalco@nd.edu
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
