Over in the threads of my Real War on Christmas post, North wondered about the “secular bugaboos that the WOC crusaders do battle against.” Who exactly are these lawsuit Grinches? It’s a good question.
If there’s one thing that risk management has taught me over the years, it’s that people will take offense and file indignant lawsuits for all kinds of reasons, many of them pretty silly if not outright ludicrous. Atheist activists are no exception to this rule, and so I am certainly willing to take on faith the claim that some or even many anti-Christmas observance lawsuits are a joke.
That being said…
The WOC brouhaha drives ratings for conservative and liberal media alike, and this creates a bit of a problem: there just aren’t that many outrageous successful Christmas lawsuits to sustain an annual outrage cottage industry. To solve this shortage issue, the conservative media will often simply manufacture the stories. Do a little bit or research on a WOC story these days, and more often than not you’ll find that the facts originally reported aren’t as outrageous as the current narrative suggests.
Take the case of South Carolina’s East Point Academy.
If you watch Fox News, listen to talk radio or read conservative blogs, chances are you’ve already heard the story: For three years, the public charter school has held a Christmas toy drive for impoverished children in third world countries. The toy drive is held in conjunction with Operation Christmas Child, a project run by the non-profit Samaritan’s Purse. Recently a group of “humanist” busybodies decided that because Christmas and Christians are eeevil, the children from East Point should be blocked from sending charity to destitute boys and girls who have nothing. And let’s face it, even if you believe in the separation of church and state, this feels like a pretty s**ty banner for humanists to rally around. Is Samaritan’s Purse a Christian ministry? Sure. Is Christmas a religious holiday? Kind of. Still, skewering a charity toy drive on that basis seems pretty despicable and self-absorbed.
So, score one for the WOC crowd getting it right — yes?
Well, not exactly, because it turns out there’s actually more to the story than what is being reported in the conservative media.
The story initially broke nationally when Fox News contributor Todd Starnes reported on it last month, and that alone should give you pause. I have a half-written post from this summer that I am going to finish someday, where I make the argument that Todd Starnes is the single worst pundit of all time. It isn’t that he’s conservative, or that he’s on Fox. It’s just that he’s a transcendently terrible excuse for a journalist. He gets almost nothing he reports on right; in fact it isn’t always clear that he doesn’t just make things up. (For example, his claim last February that Obama was set to “cleanse” the military of all Christians in the US military so that Obama could something something Mulsim something, or that New York public school curriculum now teaches girls how to lesbian role-play.)
You can read Starnes report on East Point Academy for Fox News here. No matter how carefully you read it, however, here’s what you won’t find: That part of what Samaritan’s Purse make the third world kids do in order to get their charity toys is sign a document pledging to renounce their current faith and declare themselves Christian.
This, of course, makes the case of East Point Academy’s victimhood a little trickier than advertised. Having kids from a public school gather toys and send them to third world countries for a quasi-religious holiday is one thing. Having those kids take part in a scheme to bribe boys and girls into renouncing their faith and convert to Christianity is another. Add to this the wrinkle that there are many existing charity toy drives that don’t ask poor children to convert out of their parents faith that East Point could partner with instead, and it makes their initial decision all that much more head-scratching. It is not without reason, I suspect, that Starnes, Glenn Beck, Megyn Kelly and others “reporting” on this story under the rubric of the WOC found it convenient to leave out this detail.
Those who want another example of how the conservative media machine manufactures WOC stories should read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s story on the Georgia elementary school that Fox, Beck, and others went after for supposedly “confiscating” teacher’s Christmas cards in jackboot fashion. Journalist Jim Galloway tells the story better than I can, so you should read his telling here. I don’t think I’m giving away anything by letting you know now that the whole thing was made up and then blown up by the ratings machine, but the story about how that rat went through the snake is fascinating.
Follow Tod on Twitter, view his archive, or email him. Visit him at TodKelly.com
For a Red Ryder carbine-action, two-hundred-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time, I would have sold my soul to Satan himself.Report
You’ll put your eye out!Report
I’d sell that, too.Report
Gotta close one eye to aim anyway.Report
Seems that anyone who wants the freedom to follow their own conscience about matters of faith ought to be upset at Samaritan’s Purse. But then again, evangelizing to small children is hardly anything new, and neither is using bribery to get kids to say or do things that please adults.Report
There is a sub-strain of belief that holds that if the child becomes a Christian, the child will never, ever cease to be a Christian with regards to the whole “Heaven vs. Hell” eventuality even if the moment is forgotten before suppertime and the kid goes on to live to be 103 with a life filled with wanton debauchery.
As such, that moment in which the child becomes a Christian is very, very important.
Of course, one’s opinion of the deity probably isn’t that high if one believes that when you really sit down and think about it but, hey. It’s not about sitting down and thinking about it.Report
Have their been controversies when evangelicals have tried to convert children on non-Chrisitians behind the backs of said non-Christian parents?Report
I can think of a handful off the top of my head, which tells me that there are likely to be dozens.Report
I know there was a lot of controversy about Mormons baptising dead famous non-mormons. As i recall they did a lot of baptising of Jewsish holocaust victims as well.Report
Doing stuff to dead people’s names strikes me as significantly less troublesome.
It’s like when you’re LARPing in the woods and someone throws a nerf dart at you and yells “lightning bolt”, except they’re yelling “salvation” and there’s no nerf dart and you aren’t there and instead of being in the woods, they’re alone in a basement.Report
What kind of saving throw would my character need to make against Salvation? Rods/Staffs/Wands? Paralyze/Poison/Death Magic? Breath Weapon?Report
I admit to being unfamiliar with the game system in question.
They claim 100% success but, hey. They would.Report
Most recently on the thread about the Duck Dynasty dude but often permeating conversations about “bigotry” is the idea that not all things that don’t fall over themselves with love for something qualify is an -ism or a -phobia or bigotry.
I think the same holds true for the WoC. I actively resist the playing of Christmas music in my classroom. For some, this brands me as a warrior in the WoC. But the reality is I hate Christmas music not because of the “Christmas” part but because of the “music” part. Almost every Christmas song is godawful to listen to. The few that aren’t soon become so by the fifth listen of the day. I don’t like Michael Buble no matter what he sings. I resist playing any shitty music in my classroom, but the only type of shitty music people insist on playing is Christmas music. So when I actively resist the Christmas music, I’m branded “one of them”.
Oh… and some people are bothered that I wished a Jewish family Happy Hanukkah. Apparently I’m supposed to wish them Merry Christmas.Report
Oh… and some people are bothered that I wished a Jewish family Happy Hanukkah. Apparently I’m supposed to wish them Merry Christmas.
If your not one of Us, your one of Them. It’s a crystal clear calculus devoid of the subtlety that *all* truly great belief-systems embody.Report
You’re not supposed to encourage them in being not-Christians.Report
But it seems that simply failing to actively encourage them to be Christian is the issue.Report
Thank-you, Tod, for another bit of reportage complete with research and everything. Too bad Fox doesn’t know how to do that.
As an atheist I find public displays annoying but as long as public funds aren’t being used I don’t get too upset. Here, the town puts decorations on the light poles. There’s maybe a half dozen different ones in rotation and aside from the angel they’re all pretty generic holiday themed. No big deal.
I get really tired of being accused of being a grinch by proxy.Report
Too bad Fox doesn’t know how to do that.
I’m a bit more generous. Fox may or may not know how to do it. Fox may know how to do it, and use it as a starting point. But the Fox business plan dictates that that’s not what they’ll present to their audience — aired stories have to fit a particular slant in order to attract a particular audience. The end of the Glenn Beck show seems to suggest that they’re not willing to go beyond a certain point.Report
IOW, finely crafted and carefully tuned bullshit. At least the newsbabes are easy on the eyes while they lie to you.Report
The end of the Glenn Beck show seems to suggest that they’re not willing to go beyond a certain point.
By “they”, do you mean the audience? Fox had no problem with Beck so long as his ratings were decent.Report
Thanks for the extra info my Tod.Report