From Where I Sit LET ME WISH YOU "MERRY CHRISTMAS." PLEASE!
	DECEMBER 2005

by Richard Koscher, Publisher

I’m glad to honor any person’s dignity, but I’ve never wasted much attention on trying to be politically correct. Part of that resistance might come from my upbringing in Austria, since the movement towards political correctness is an American phenomenon. A characteristic of my Teutonic heritage, I think, is to share my opinions frankly. Even more importantly, I’m now an American citizen and few things are closer to the American ideal than free expression of one’s faith.

Language police are becoming part of the American social landscape. For example, a few years ago I was working as an Art Director for a corporate office in San Francisco. One day my boss saw me preparing holiday greeting cards to send to some of our designers and illustrators. He told me that my cards couldn’t contain the words “Merry Christmas.”

I’ll spare you the details of the ensuing argument but will only mention that my cards all went out with the words Marry Christmas displayed prominently on them. Since Christmas for me is the celebration of Jesus’ birthday, why should I be intimidated about referring to my belief? I certainly would have no problem if a Jewish friend responded with a Happy Hanukah on his card to me.

Anyone should be free to greet me with a “Happy Ramadan,” or whatever he might want to wish me, but he should not be offended by my wishing him Merry Christmas, nor should he be able to intimidate me into not doing so. Freedom to express one’s beliefs should be the American way in daily life as well as under the law.

I believe that we are now faced with a formidable challenge. Atheism is a religious position, the free exercise of which should be acknowledged and protected by our laws. However, even though Atheism is the religious position of only about 12 percent of our society, by excluding any reference to God, no matter how non-sectarian, from our public life, we are far advanced in a process that is establishing Atheism as our national religion.

In other words, when we practice our corporate life in the deliberate and even legally enforced absence of God, we’re exactly conforming to the religious stand of the atheistic minority living in our midst.

Billy Graham’s daughter, Ann Graham Lotz, once observed that America has, in a sense, told God that we want Him out of our government, our business, and our marketplace. According to her, God, “who is a gentleman,” has pulled out, “removing His hand of blessing and protection.”

And here’s another important fact: Our whole-hearted support of pluralism shouldn’t blind us to the fact that we do not live in a religiously neutral country. From our beginnings American traditions and history have acknowledged the need to include Jesus Christ in the practice of our corporate lives.

For example, 21 years after he signed the Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry wrote, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

A growing movement among the media in this country is opposed to faith in general and to belief in Jesus Christ in particular. I once interviewed for a job at the Miami New Times. I thought the publication might be a good place to work, even though the paper ran a “Jesus of the Week” feature, depicting the Savior in some unflattering or even profane pose.

I told the Editor that I found the feature to be offensive. He apologized and said they had gotten a lot of complaints and were reconsidering whether the feature was appropriate.

I didn’t get a callback interview for the job. You have to guess for yourself whether my defense of Jesus was enough to bar me from consideration for a staff position with that paper. One undeniable fact is that the New Times still publishes their awful Jesus of the Week feature.

I know that I will not be politically correct in the way I will conclude this column. But America remains, after all, “the land of the free and the home of the brave” and I’m going to freely and bravely exercise my freedom of religion and speech.

So let me just say, from the staff of 110° Magazine, have a Merry Christmas!