Christcorp said:
Burn our flag or a bible and it's "Free Speech". Burn a Koran and they want to execute you. Call a christian a bible thumper or jesus freak and it's free speech. Make an anti-semitic or muslim comment and there are those that will call it a "Hate Crime". If you don't realize that there is reverse discrimination going on and the whole Political Correctness movement is the main cause for most of our social conflicts; you're wearing blinders.
See, here's the problem...you're falling into the same ignorant trap that so many others do. I don't know if that's because you're ignorant yourself, or because of what I see as a Fox News-propagated "WASP victim culture." The great downtrodden Christian myth.
Yes, you can burn our flag. You can burn a Bible. You can even burn a Koran. It's still free speech. Your clever use of "they" (as in "burn a Koran and THEY want to execute you") was not lost on us. Tell us, who is the great THEY of which you speak? Do you mean islamic fundamentalists? Funny, I didn't realize they were a big part of the American free speech debate on a daily basis. If you burned one in Afghanistan or Iran, you might have a problem on your hands. But trying to bring violent religious fundamentalist views that were born in nations who do not subscribe to our rights of free speech and religion is a lame tactic. Go burn a Koran in your town square. A lot of people will think you're a jerk, but you'll be well within your rights. And you'll be fine.
As to your point about "Bible thumper"....you know why people don't get worked up about it? Because in a country so thoroughly bathed in the Christian majority's views, we have literally developed no anti-Christian insults that are anywhere on par with the anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim terms out there. It's the same with race....really, what's the worst insult you can call a white person? It's good to be king, huh?
Boo-hoo to your "reverse discrimination" garbage. Discrimination, by definition, has no implicit direction. It is simply the act of prejudicial or distinguishing treatment toward an individual based on his/her membership (real or perceived) in a certain group. The fact that you see discrimination toward Christians (which exists more in myth than in any reality) as "reverse" implies that discrimination has been previously oriented in one direction--from Christians, toward others--as part of some natural order of things in our country. Sadly, you're right.
What you see as "reverse discrimination" is nothing more than the fact that we're approaching, slowly but surely, a point in this country where the lion's share of rights don't go to white male protestants. Perhaps you grew up in some lily-white town where the public high school teams had a protestant minister say a prayer before a game, or where the county courthouse put a nice Nativity scene out front every year. Both have been upheld as violations of the establishment clause in several instances by a variety of courts up to and including the Supreme Court. The problem is that the majority powerholders in this country for generations and generations were white protestants. So when the minister cleared his throat to pray for the group, or the janitor started to set up the Nativity scene, no one stood up and said "hey, I don't think that's right." Why? Because it was hard enough to be a Jew or a Muslim or any other flavor of non-majority religion by itself, let alone to be the one to stand up to the fact that the Christian majority had co-opted so much of what should be free of religion.
December 25th is "Christmas". It's a religious holiday. (Forget that it's been commercialized). It's a federal holiday. It celebrates the birth of christ by christians. Yet, most places because of their PC BS, won't let you say "Merry Christmas". It must be "Happy Holidays" or some similarly neutered salutation. I have jewish friends and when we're in Hanuka, that's what I recognize. When it's christmas, they are good enough to recognize christmas. I expect that from others too. But no, it has to be neutral. Politically correct.
Actually, it's a celebration of any of several retold accounts of the birth of the religious figure Jesus of Nazareth, which occurred in the springtime (likely May) and was subsequently moved to the winter to coincide with and supplant the Anglo-Saxon pagan Yule holiday. But I digress.
Really, though, where are these "most places"? Got some names? Where exactly are you PROHIBITED from saying "Merry Christmas?" Where MUST you say happy holidays? Are these places private? If so, they can prevent you from saying any number of things. So where are these places where your rights have been so grievously violated? It's great that you wish the chosen people a Happy Hanukkah (or Chanukkah, if you prefer...free judaism lesson, my gift to you). That's your choice. Your personal behavior has nothing to do with the activity of the government. Nothing.
The fact that you're so aggrieved that things "must be neutral" is prima facie evidence of my point. This country is so used to Christians being allowed to flavor everything, unquestioned, from the song at the seventh inning stretch of the Yankees game to the oath of office, that the idea of leaving the Christian [g]od out of things seems downright unpalatable to some...
