Chicago and the rest of us are all abuzz about this ridiculous Christkindlmarket controversy . On Monday the city was saying The Nativity Story had no place at a Christmas festival because of concerns it would be “insensitive to the many people of different faiths” who might show up at the festival.
We’re talking about a Christmas festival that already has a crescent and a menorah on site.
Running it up the flagpole, the mayor’s office, perhaps realizing how silly this all is, is now saying the objection to The Nativity Story’s involvement was that it was a movie — the market had to rebuff commercialism. Well, that’s silly too. And No Room at the Christkindlmarket for the Holy Family is already exhibit one in this year’s “war on Christmas” meme, anyway, so no sense in trying to stop the outrage now.
If the Chicago mayor’s office isn’t going to fix this, Barack Obama ought to thank them and get into this.
Obama, who’s spending time at Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven evangelical church this week and has not been shy about wanting to be the Dem who goes after so-called values voters if he runs in 2008 , ought to get in the front of this and express his outrage at the Christkindlmarket nonsense.
If he wages a Keep Christ in Christmas campaign folks on all sides of the political spectrum won’t know what to do. It’ll be fun to watch — sure beats stories on what Iowa advisers he’s talking to this week. And he’ll be all over the December news. It’s smart politics.
Most importantly though, he may serve to do us all a long-term service — depoliticize Christmas a little by standing next to Concerned Women for America and the rest of the right-wingers and saying come on, guys, this is stupid.
Honestly, every year “The War on Christmas” stuff gives me a headache. Can we just all agree Christmas has something to do with this Christ guy and get on with it? Go for it, Obama.