People treating the holidays like a sort of cultural pep rally, complete with pranks and shenanigans, seems to be a theme this year. I’ve previously posted about the bizarre horror experienced by folks in one town where the Christmas tree wasn’t exactly as impressive as a Hanukkah menorah.
Via Pharyngula comes another such story of folks who apparently feel that Christmas must dominate all other holidays… and on public land no less. It was so important to them that they smashed into a Wiccan pentacle with a pickup truck. Folks like Bill O’Reilly claim that they would be just as happy living in a country dominated by a different religion, but given their screeching shock at the existence of any other religion or non-religion, it’s very, very hard to take this assertion seriously.
They also never seem to understand that the only constitutionally legitimate way to have religious expression on the grounds of a government building is if this access is free and open to all points of view. But the very same people who whine about how “tolerance” demands that the government aid their religious practice don’t seem to like it when anyone but their favored sect gets into the act.
If you don’t want atheists getting into the game then there’s really no one to blame but yourself.
The Bad Idea Blog 
Thanks for posting this story.
I live in the Buffalo area. When the story about the pentacle getting run over was mentioned on a local radio station, the DJs basically laughed about it; saying that there aren’t any Wiccan holidays around Christmas. They actully said that the Wiccas were doing it to prove that they could.
I made sure to send the radio station a memo telling them to do a little research before slandering a group of people.
The naiviity and preconcieved notions that people have are truley amazing.
Thank you for setting the radio station right. I have a BS in Broadcasting, have worked in the business for over 8 years and am ashamed of my Industry when on-air “Talent” are so ignorant!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Pre-Christian_origins
I doubt it’s ignorance per se that’s the issue. Many commercial radio shows keep people listening by either being outrageous or outraged: ragging on folks is pretty much SOP, regardless of whether the ragging is well informed or accurate or not. Tiny minorities outside of the mainstream make easy targets.
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They never do get that, do they? I’ve argued with christians over Bush’s faith based initiative saying that one day there could be a jewish, muslim or hey, maybe a mormon Pres. who uses those recently won “gains” to funnel money and influence to their faith. What then?