Parasites of Christmas
Contact: Jeff Field, Director of Communications, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
212-371-3191, cl@catholicleague.org
NEW YORK, Dec. 22, 2011 /Standard Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on secularists who feed off of Christmas:
For the past couple of years, Macy's has been brandishing the word Believe at Christmastime: the word appears in huge lights across its Herald Square store on 34th Street in New York City, and is inscribed on its shopping bags. To believe is to believe in something -- it must have an object -- but Macy's prefers not to know what most people believe in at this time of year, so it allows everyone to fill in the blank. So inclusive.
For good reason, Macy's chooses December to invoke its Believe campaign -- it would make no sense to do so in June. Its latest newspaper ad comes close to telling us what to believe in, but stops short: it says, "Want to be the Ultimate Santa this season? Visit macys.com/gifts."
Bloomingdale's comes perilously close to using the word Christmas. Its latest ad reads:
Merry
must-haves
{Gifts $100 and Under}
must-haves
{Gifts $100 and Under}
There is a silly full-page ad in today's New York Times by the atheists from Freedom From Religion Foundation called, Reason's Greetings. The "Solstice Tribute" is appropriately vacuous, but what got our attention was the caveat at the end of the lyrical statement: it says, "May be sung to 'O Little Town of Bethlehem.'" In other words, "Rock Around the Clock" won't suffice. Sorry Brenda.
The good news is that these secularists cannot survive without parasitically feeding off Christmas, thus giving us Christians a back-handed compliment. We'll take it.
Merry Christmas to everyone, and most especially to all of those who will celebrate what Believe really means at this time of year.