Memo to Holiday Fundamentalists: FUCK OFF.
You people pull this shit every year, but you used to at least be a bit muted about it. Going on TV and moping about how the Christ has been taken out of Christmas. But this year you're getting downright nasty, and you need to get the fuck over it.
There is no vast liberal secular conspiracy to oppress, repress, and persecute you and take your holiday away. Just like John Kerry wasn't going to ban the bible, just like the gays aren't going to sneak in during the night like well-dressed ninjas and turn you gay in your sleep. We're not that organized. I wish we were. It's getting to the point where I think you people could use a short bout of persecution. You know, like a week's worth. Just to remind you what it's like.
Since I can't do that, allow me to provide you with a few simple guidelines, in case you're sitting around the house wondering if you're being persecuted:
Being asked to share: NOT PERSECUTION. Even being forced to share: NOT PERSECUTION. Not holding ultimate domain over every aspect of December: NOT PERSECUTION. Having a tiny fraction of your influence eroded by time and society: NOT PERSECUTION. Being kept from getting every little last thing your Jesus-humping hearts secretly desire: NOT PERSECUTION.
Just because one day of the season is named after Jesus does not make it all yours. And if you have a problem with that, tough shit, because it's YOUR FAULT in the first place. It's your fault for horning in on the solstice, for starters. There were winter holidays before you came around, but if there's one thing you've kept constant for two-plus thousand years, it's that you hate competition. So you counterprogrammed the Solstice with Christmas, grabbed all the market share, stuck angels on top of the trees, and called it yours. But you weren't there first, and you've established a precedent, haven't you?
And second, it's your fault because you're the only religion to get not ONE, but TWO of your holy days declared as national, governmentally recognized holidays. Veteran's Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, MLK, those are all national days for national history, but Christmas and Easter are yours, and you made them America's. Guess which two holidays are the most secularized, with Santas and bunnies instead of Jesuses and More Jesuses? Think that's a coincidence? You give the whole country the day off to celebrate, and even the ones who don't believe in Christ are gonna have a party.
The right's current echo-chamber bitch-fest includes retail stores changing greetings from "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays", and this is described as the Moral Apocalypse engineered by the Jews, the Liberals, and the Jew Liberal Secular Humanist Atheists. Who they SHOULD be blaming is their beloved capitalism. The invisible hand makes more money giving invisible hand-jobs to all god's children than it does just the Jesus-fans. So the stores, wanting money from Muslims and Buddhists and Jews and secular atheists who still celebrate Christmas because we like having days off and giving our friends stuff, tell us "Happy Holidays" because that covers Christmas and Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and "Hey, There's No God, But Here's A Waffle Iron Anyway!"* That's the free market for you.
They're pursuing PROFIT, you thick fucks, not some dark agenda. So once again, the people actually responsible are going after their opponents for shit we didn't do. That they DID do. Because they can't stand not being allowed in a "holiday parade" that hasn't had religious floats in it ever before. Because they think it's Satan's work when Target decides to stop making an exception for the Salvation "We'll Fire You If You're Gay" Army in its no-solicitations policy. "Oh no, we don't have our special privileges anymore, and have to operate on the same level as everyone else! We're being PERSECUTED!"
Bill O'Reilly is complaining of an "anti-Christian jihad" JIHAD. Bill O'Reilly masturbates on the phone using his extensive vibrator collection! He's got so many sins Jesus would have to come back about two dozen times just to die for them all. The poster child for creepy self-abuse is going to say who's anti-Christian? The Falafel-Fucker is going to cast the first stone?
The lessons of kindergarten are lost on these people. So fuck 'em. If they can't share their toys, maybe we SHOULD be taking them away from 'em.
*You don't expect atheists to have decent holiday names, do you? No practice.