Christmas lights? Does this story even matter? No, of course not. . . . Except that it does. See:
"Red, green lights to be banned? Committee proposal says colored Christmas twinklers too religious" (WorldNetDaily, 11-6-07)
A special task force in a Colorado city has recommended banning red and green lights at the Christmas holiday because they fall among the items that are too religious for the city to sponsor. "Some symbols, even though the Supreme Court has declared that in many contexts they are secular symbols, often still send a message to some members of the community that they and their traditions are not valued and not wanted. We don't want to send that message," Seth Anthony, a spokesman for the committee, told the Fort Collins, Colo., Coloradoan. He said the recommended language does not specifically address Christmas trees by name, but the consensus was that they would not fall within acceptable decorations.
This is in Colorado -- not Massachusetts or San Francisco.
Why does it matter, you ask, frog that you are, sitting in the pot of water, enjoying the warmth ... as the temperature slowly rises?
Thinking in strategic terms about the Enemy's war plan, as C. S. Lewis was when he wrote his short classic The Screwtape Letters, this little "test balloon" is designed to help lazy Christians and their Lexus-driving pastors get used to the idea of Big Brother gradually evolving into the polar opposite of what our Founding Fathers designed. Can you handle an oppressively, anti-Christian state imposing gradually, more and more aggressively an official ideology that is actually ... AntiChrist-ianity... upon a nation founded by Christians, until every town, every school, every business, every shop, every church and every family has passively accepted the transition? Red and green holiday lights are just too ... religious. But don't worry. Relax. Enjoy the warm water. They're giving you plenty of time to get acclimated.
This is not your grandfather's old-fashioned, concentration-camp totalitarianism. It's the five-star version. An extremely comfortable variation of a hybridized Marxist-Fascist paradise, with no need for an archipelago of concentration camps, no starvation, no tanks in the streets, or firing squads. Just because the Christians may not have freedom and their children may never know what America was, doesn't mean they won't still have their shopping malls, their satellite TV and their SUVs.
Some symbols "... often still send a message to some members of the community that they and their traditions are not valued and not wanted. We don't want to send that message..." No, we don't want to send that message -- not to anyone who might be offended by the religious heritage of the country they are living in. We just want to sent that message to Christians. "You, your traditions and your beliefs are not valued. Shut up and go away. Oh, wait. Not so fast. You can leave the kids with us."
John Haskins is an analyst and writer at the Parents' Rights Coalition of Massachusetts.
