Pulling plug on Christmas

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The baby in the Bethlehem manger has become politically incorrect and wishing someone "Merry Christmas" can be viewed as a civil rights violation, John Gibson argues in his book "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought."

Mr. Gibson, host of "The Big Story" on Fox News Channel, says groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are attempting to "ban the sacred Christian holiday." The following are excerpts of a telephone interview with Mr. Gibson:

Q: According to your subtitle, there's a liberal plot to ban Christmas.

A: The liberal plot is ensconced in various places. ... It's a bunch of like-minded thinkers. You find it in the secular Humanist Manifesto No. 3, you find it in the pronouncements of the American Union for the Separation of Church and State, and you find it in the frequently-asked-questions sections of various ACLU Web sites. I call it a plot, in that they're planning all this.

Here's where I disagree with them. These guys are on the left side of the First Amendment. I don't mean left-wing, politically. The phrase that says, "Congress shall make no law [respecting an establishment of] religion." I tend to look at the right side, which follows the comma: "Nor prohibit the free exercise thereof." And I think that when they argue that schools, public parks, libraries and city halls should consider a Christmas tree or Santa Claus as the celebration of religion, and therefore it has to be banned, that they are involved in the prohibition of free exercise. These are secular symbols.

Q: What are some examples of secularization?

A: The worst example of all of this is renaming things out of existence. You see this controversy this year about renaming the Christmas holiday as just "holidays," renaming Christmas trees as a "holiday tree" or "friendship tree" or "giving tree." Or, as Martha Stewart says, the "Mount Holly tree." One of the big renaming projects in this country is renaming the Christmas break in schools to the "winter break."

Q: You write that the ACLU has been providing the "legal muscle and pretzel logic" in the war. How are they doing that?

A: They threaten: "We're willing to litigate this. We realize the court has not said this is illegal, but we're willing to make a case for it nonetheless." And if you follow the trail of crumbs, you arrive at a conclusion that they say this and they get away with it because organizations like schools and libraries and so forth are just afraid of incurring litigation costs and, perhaps, losing and having to pay the ACLU's litigation costs.

Q: When people say "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," aren't they just being polite? Where do you draw the line?