Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
You've gotta see this article at the Worldnutdaily about the pagan flyer being distributed at a school in Virginia. They're outraged - outraged! - that the school would allow such indoctrination:
A public-school handout urging young children in Virginia to attend a "Pagan ritual" tomorrow to "celebrate Yule" is sparking objections from concerned parents."Amazing - government schools ban orthodox Christianity, but allow an openly pagan organization to proselytize six-year-olds!" one observer who asked for anonymity told WND.
Lie #1: This is not a "public school handout", it's a handout put together by a local UU church. It's distributed by the public school. Why? Because the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel threatened to sue the school if they didn't allow religious groups to put flyers advertising their events into the school's flyer distribution system. Indeed, Christian legal groups have pushed for such access all over the country in similar cases, and won court victories requiring schools to do so.
But boy, as soon as they find out that Christian groups aren't the only ones who can use such a system, all hell breaks loose. Which points out, I think, the central deceit at the core of their "religious freedom" arguments in favor of such policies: they don't really mean it. They don't really want religious freedom. Indeed, the same people who were all for a Baptist church being able to distribute flyers that way now want the school to ban religious flyer distribution. What they want is exclusive access, not religious freedom.
Punchline: according to their poll, less than 2% of Worldnutdaily readers say that the school can't discriminate among religious beliefs in deciding what to allow and what not to allow. They indeed want exclusive access for Christianity only.
Comments
Long before they carried items about teaching Creationism in Dover, the York newspapers would have notices of and articles about Christmas celebrations in the area. And every year there would be letters to the editors from pastors who viewed Christmas trees, parades, and yule logs as pagan rites and symbols that the righteous people of York County ought to avoid. I don't recall that they ever called for the papers not to cover such news, however.
Posted by: mark | December 9, 2006 10:13 AM
Apparently they've copped on to their hypocrisy. The poll is missing and has been replaced by one on X-rated Christmas ornaments.
Posted by: George | December 9, 2006 10:20 AM
With all the "war on Christmas" nonsense these days, you gotta love the irony of this statement found later in the article:
It seems the war on Christmas is older than we thought! ;)
Posted by: WJD | December 9, 2006 10:33 AM
Posted by: Richard Simons | December 9, 2006 11:08 AM
It seems the war on Christmas is older than we thought! ;)
Oh, indeed! There have been a few good books in recent years on the subject. My personal favorite is Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas, especially the bit on how Clement Clark Moore came to write "The Night Before Christmas". Good stuff.
(He also goes a bit into the pagan-holdover thing, which isn't quite as cut-and-dried as it first appears. Ah, history.)
Posted by: Genevieve Williams | December 9, 2006 12:51 PM
Andrew Sullivan's word 'Christianist' comes to mind. They may claim the name of Christian, but I sure don't recognize the message as being one from Christ. I could be wrong, but since my family has been producing ministers and elders and deacons in the presbyterian church for the past ten or more generations I doubt it. Some of them were also involved in some wars against Christmas and preached about staying home doing the daily tasks rather than spending time in frivolity and excess spending.
Posted by: Roger | December 9, 2006 5:40 PM
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the Western Hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual reference of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.
This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.
By the way... Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :-)
Posted by: DonM | December 9, 2006 5:45 PM
The article said:
"Even though the flyer carries a disclaimer that it's not endorsed by the school, "parents think of things that come home to them as somehow being school-sanctioned," Friedman said."
It seems to me that this speaks directly to the intelligence of these parents.
Posted by: Dave | December 9, 2006 6:10 PM
Dammit!
If I were in town I totally would have gone and gotten all pagan with the Unitarians. The church is about a block away from me.
Unitarians rock.
Posted by: quitter | December 9, 2006 6:33 PM
There are Christian sects which seem to think that believing their religion requires no more "faith" than believing that the sun will rise tomorrow, or that your car is in the garage when you can't see it. Seems to me they're so inundated by a constant running theme of Biblical Truth being clear, reasonable, and easily demonstrable that they have reframed religion the way we frame science. It's perfectly okay for only Christianity to have access to public schools because, unlike false religions, Christianity is proven fact.
Thus, they'll no more think of themselves as hypocrites than we do, for wanting only evolution taught in science class. To them, "having faith" in the truth of Christianity is lip service only: they KNOW it's true, their faithfulness consists in being loyal to God's side.
Posted by: Sastra | December 9, 2006 7:55 PM
It's not hypocrisy, it's theocracy!
Posted by: daenku32 | December 10, 2006 6:54 AM