ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONTROVERSY ALREADY UP AND RUNNING

Fox News Channel host John Gibson interviewed by Kathryn Jean Lopez

"Christmas is under attack in such a sustained and strategized manner that there is, no doubt, a war on Christmas." So writes Fox News Channel host John Gibson in his new book, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought. Blue state or red state, putting up a Christmas tree and not having to call it a "friendship tree" or a "giving tree" can often be quite the battle. Gibson relays some of the stories in The War on Christmas. Gibson recently sang his carols to National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez:

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Will you say "Merry Christmas" on air this year? Is that something that distinguishes Fox News from other media?

John Gibson: Fox News Channel put a "Merry Christmas" greeting on the air last year, as well as a "Happy Channukah" (though at this precise moment I'm not certain what spelling was used). I expect to see both again. As for me, I also say both depending on who it is I'm greeting, and yes, I do say the wrong thing sometimes. It happens. I trust that people understand no insult is meant if it happens to be the wrong greeting.

Lopez: You take on Aaron Brown in your introduction. Is this all a competitive anti-CNN thing?

Gibson: I wouldn't say I "take on Aaron Brown". I just pointed out what he said, and why he was wrong diminishing the importance of Christmas to a great number of Americans. As for the general anti-CNN thing, that's just the nature of competition. I want to beat them everyday, and I usually do. It's not that anybody's counting, or paying excessively close attention, but I have beaten my CNN opponent for 44 straight months.

Lopez: Isn't it a little much to be talking about "War on Christmas?" If Islamist terrorists were targeting Christmas celebrations, okay. But Festivus doesn't seem to rise to the level of war, does it? Do you hurt your argument by over hyping the problem?

Gibson: Do I hurt my argument by over hype in my choice of title, "The War on Christmas"? No. I think there is a general war on Christians underway in our country. You hear it in political discussions all the time when a Democrat or a liberal will decry the power of those "right wing evangelical Christians," and you hear it in the arguments about Intelligent Design, abortion, prayer in school, the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls, and frankly, a bunch of other ordinary discussions.

So in The War on Christmas I expose how that casual, accepted anti-Christian bias shows up once a year around Christmas when people in positions of petty power, such as school administrators, or municipal-hall managers, will suddenly pop up saying things like "We can't have that Christmas tree in here because it's too Christian." I had a long discussion with a city human-resources manager who said precisely that. What I find shocking is that people like that man do not hear the sound of their voices. Substitute any other religion for the word "Christian" and these very people would be up in arms with the cry of prejudice and bias, but if the bias is directed at Christians, it is perfectly acceptable.

Also, if you look at the newspapers over the last five years you find these stories popping up every Christmas season, with almost exactly the same arguments made, and almost exactly the same result each time: disaster.

I do believe the atmosphere is improving in some places, because people have recognized the downside of institutionalized hostility to religion in general and Christianity in particular. Tolerance is the tradition in this country, and tolerance should be extended to Christians during their important holiday period.

Lopez: Not to belabor, but: Isn't some of the "Happy Holidays" stuff out there understandable, polite, appropriate? When you're on air, you've got Christians, yes, but Jews and Muslims and others are also tuning in. Should they have to be hearing about a Christian holiday-in their faces as if there were something wrong with them for not celebrating it? Or are you all for dumbing down Christmas to make it a secular holiday everyone can celebrate?

Gibson: .Yes, if you are greeting someone you know to be a Jewish person you might want to give the appropriate greeting. But I've also had Jewish people say to me that they don't feel insulted when a Christian says "Merry Christmas" and even though there is no logic to wishing a non-Christian "Merry Christmas" if taken literally, I think most people get it, and understand no harm is meant and it is a greeting of simple well wishing.

This issue of non Christians being confronted with Christianity wherever they go at Christmas time seems to me to be best answered by "Well... DUH!" It's a Christian holiday and it's a big one. Eighty-four percent of the country self identifies as Christian. Ninety-six percent of the country observes or celebrates Christmas in some form, if only slightly, so what would one expect? I think Christmas does require the forbearance of non-Christians, but I don't think it should be a big issue. Once again, the American tradition is tolerance, and I see no reason why tolerance should not be extended to the majority religion and its secularized symbols.

As for the issue of dumbing-down Christmas, I'm probably the wrong guy to ask. People active in church, or actual clergy will say "yes," and will insist that a Christmas tree is not a religious symbol of Christianity the same way that a crŠche is. And consequently, they continue to insist that the proper public display of a Christian religious symbol is the crŠche. I would say they are right, and I urge them to continue to make that argument..."

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Three years later, courts finally get the Jewish joke

A bit of commonsense and resistance to hysteria from Britain's highest court

There's no joke like a Jewish joke. Not an anti-Jewish joke, just a knowing joke between Jews. But in our jittery nanny society, no joke is safe from the stony-faced thought police. Yesterday, in a welcome pronouncement of common sense, the law lords ruled that Harry Goldstein had meant no harm when he played a whimsical jape on his old Jewish friend Abraham Ehrlich.

Mr Goldstein has suffered for his humour. Three years ago a jury at Southwark Crown Court found him guilty of causing a public nuisance. He was sentenced to 140 hours' community punishment and ordered to pay 500 pounds compensation and 1,850 pounds prosecution costs. Mr Goldstein appealed, but the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction. Now the highest court in the land has seen the nonsense of it.

Mr Goldstein, a kosher food merchant from Manchester, owed a sum of money to Mr Ehrlich, his wholesale supplier in London. Mr Ehrlich pressed Mr Goldstein for payment. The friends, the law lords were told, had "a bantering relationship". What two Jewish traders don't? In an ancient cultural gesture, Mr Goldstein wrote out a cheque to Mr Ehrlich, but into the envelope he sprinkled a small quantity of salt.

Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the senior law lord, explained yesterday: "This was done in recognition of the age of the debt, salt being commonly used to preserve kosher food, and by way of reference to the very serious anthrax scare in New York following the events of September 11, 2001, which both men had discussed on the telephone shortly before."

Mr Ehrlich never got his cheque, or salt. The envelope got as far as Wembley sorting office, London, where the salt leaked on to the hands of a worker, who suspected it of being anthrax. Panic ensued. The sorting office was evacuated for an hour, the police were called and that day's second delivery was cancelled.

At his original court hearing Mr Goldstein denied the common law offence of public nuisance. He had the backing of Mr Ehrlich, who said that he would have recognised the salt as a joke, had he received it.

Overturning the conviction yesterday, Lord Bingham said that Mr Goldstein had not intended to cause trouble. "Nor, plainly, was it a result which he knew would occur, since it would have rendered his intended joke entirely futile." Lord Bingham, sitting with Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Baroness Hale of Richmond, said that the old common law charge of public nuisance would probably be rarely used in future, as statutes now existed to deal with almost every public nuisance, be it noise, pollution, racial or religious harassment, or sending noxious substances in the post.

The law lords also allowed an appeal by Anthony Rimmington, who had been convicted of public nuisance for posting packages of racially offensive material to members of the public. Lord Bingham said that the communications were strongly racist and in some instances threatening and arguably obscene. But the offence of public nuisance involved injury to a section of the public, and did not extend to individual letters.

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