Dispatches from Bitter America: A Gun Toting, Chicken Eating Son of a Baptist's Culture War Stories

by Starnes, Todd

  • The Obama administration is opposing the commemoration of a prayer by Franklin D. Roosevelt at the site of the World War II Memorial on the Washington Mall. The prayer, entitled "Let Our Hearts Be Stout," was delivered and broadcast to the American people on the evening of June 6, 1944, at the very moment U.S. troops were storming the beaches of Normandy. Officials from the Bureau of Land Management say the inscription of this prayer would "dilute this elegant memorial's central message" and would violate a policy designed to avoid adding new elements to existing monuments—an act that has been overridden at other times, for example, by adding an inscription of the "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Ohio Rep. Bill Johnson, sponsor of the project to be funded by private donations, cannot believe he is meeting with rejection from the White House. "For there to be objections to demonstrating a faith in God at critical points in our nation's history—particularly D-Day—boggles my mind," he said.7

  Here's another. In preparation for a scheduled presidential speech at Georgetown University in 2009, the White House asked the school to cover up all religious signs and symbols prior to the event. "The White House wanted a simple backdrop of flags and pipes and drape for the speech,"8 University Spokesperson Julie Green Bataille told CNS News.

  Georgetown is a Jesuit college, one of the most prestigious Catholic institutions of higher learning in the country, and therefore boasts a wide number of religious artifacts and etchings scattered across the campus. Inside Gaston Hall, for example, where President Obama was supposed to speak, the monogram "IHS" adorned the stage.

  Interestingly, former First Lady Laura Bush spoke in the same hall at Georgetown in 2006. The Bush Administration made no requests for the religious symbols to be hidden.

  Yet the university complied with the White House demands to secularize the Catholic campus—a decision that came under fire from Catholics who accused officials of selling out its Catholic identity. "The cowardice of Georgetown was appalling last year, and the continued spin tells us all we need to know about what is going on there," said Bill Donohue of the Catholic League.

  The incident did nothing, however, to assuage people's doubts about the president.

  Taken together with such reports as mentioned earlier about his administration's desire to remove the baby Jesus from the East Room of the White House at Christmastime, it's just a lot to wrestle with.

  Like I said, it's confusing to people.

  I decided if I was going to get to the bottom of this matter, I needed to call my man Smitty. He's the insider of Washington insiders. And I knew he would shoot straight with me about the "Jesus issue" at the White House.

  I received a rather cryptic message from Smitty telling me to meet him at St. Largess Catholic Church, a popular worship place among Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike.

  When I arrived, he ushered me into a confessional booth, closed the curtains, and began to spill the beans about what was being done behind the scenes to counteract the problem.

  "It really is a source of frustration," Smitty said. "The president is obviously a Christian. He prays every day."

  I told Smitty he might want to check his theology on that.

  "But we understand it's going to take more for the American people to embrace the president's unique approach to faith so we've started thinking out of the box," he said.

  "How far out of the box?"

  "Well," Smitty said, "I'm really not sure if I should share this information with you. It's top secret. Not even Jay Carney has it."

  "Oh, come on, Smitty. You can trust me. I'm a reporter."

  Smitty motioned for me to scoot closer to the confessional box screen.

  "We've launched a special government task force—code name: Operation Jesus Freak," he said. "Our special ops team is made up of the nation's best Christian marketing firms, self-help gurus, and television evangelists."

  Operation Jesus Freak?

  "From the dc Talk song, 'What would people do if they knew I was a Jesus Freak,'" Smitty said. "The president is much more engaged in matters of faith than the average American. That's why he rarely refers to Jesus or God by name."

  So how is Operation Jesus Freak supposed to help the commander in chief?

  "We've worked up a full game plan. It's going to be an all-out assault on Christian America," Smitty said. "By the time we get finished with this marketing plan, the nation will think of the president as the next Billy Graham."

  "He's going to do crusades?"

  "Minus the crusades. This president doesn't do crusades."

  So what can the average American expect from Operation Jesus Freak?

  "Well, some of the components are already in place," Smitty said. "His new book, The Purpose Driven Presidency, will be released in a few weeks.

  "And we've also plastered the presidential limousine with a 'Honk If You Love Jesus' bumper sticker," Smitty said. "By the way, did you catch the presidential seal inside the White House Press Briefing Room?"

  "I must have missed it," I replied.

  "If you look closely—just underneath the White House—you'll see the Jesus fish," Smitty said.

  "Do you really think a bumper sticker and a subliminal Jesus fish are going to sway public opinion?"

  "No, that's just the first wave of Operation Jesus Freak," Smitty said. "The big stuff happens at the end of his next State of the Union address."

  "What's going to happen?"

  "The president is going to hold an altar call," Smitty said. "It's brilliant!"

  Smitty also rattled off some other details. The entire First Family will begin wearing WWJD bracelets, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney will start recognizing reporters by giving them a faith-healer slap across the forehead.

  There's also talk of replacing the Marine Corps Band with a worship team. Smitty also mentioned the possibility of the president's covering "Let the Eagle Soar," a song written by former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

  "The president has a lovely singing voice," Smitty said.

  We may also see a more laid-back president. Smitty told me the church-marketing experts suggested our commander in chief shed his suit coat and tie.

  "Focus groups tend to enjoy leaders who dress down," Smitty said. "We're suggesting Hawaiian shirts, khaki pants, and sandals."

  Even the White House is undergoing a makeover.

  "It's just too formal, too traditional," Smitty explained.

  "But it's the White House," I countered. "It's supposed to be traditional."

  "Not any more, Todd. We've decided to rebrand the White House."

  "What?"

  "Starting in two Sundays, it will be called 'The House on Pennsylvania Avenue,'" he said.

  But Smitty said Operation Jesus Freak could all depend on one single issue—the president's passion for Sunday morning golf.

  "He's got to stop it, Todd," he said. "I mean what kind of a churchgoing American Christian would play golf on a Sunday morning? What would people think?"

  Well, come to think of it, I suspect people would think that the president is behaving just like an average American Christian.

  Dispatches from the Fly-over States

  15

  The War on Christmas

  For those of you who thought the war on Christmas was over, or that its battle lines were contained to Washington, DC, celebrations, let me offer this observation.

  You're wrong.

  Santa Claus has been banished, Christmas carols like "Away in a Manger" and "Silent Night" have been outlawed, and baby Jesus has been kicked to the curb as anti-Christian forces conduct a religious cleansing of our public schools and courthouses all over the land.

  The school board in the town of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, voted unanimously to banish "Christmas" vacation over the objections of ci
tizens.

  "Who got offended now?" Mary Firth wondered. "It concerns me that you start with this, and who knows where it stops."

  Boys and girls at Connecticut's Walsh Elementary School are forbidden from uttering the words "Merry Christmas." A grade school in East Syracuse, New York, has evicted Jolly Old Saint Nick from the lunchroom. The school district says while Santa may be a secular icon, he's too closely connected to Christmas.

  And holiday censorship is not limited to the Northeast or Pacific Northwest. Consider the state of Texas—where every other person is a Baptist.

  The Texas Education Agency actually considered dropping Christmas from lesson plans that would teach sixth-graders about the world's major religions. They were going to drop Christmas, people! In its place the intellectual elitists wanted to put in Dwali—don't ask.

  Is it political correctness on crack, or is something more sinister at work? I'll let you decide after reading these dispatches from the front line of the battle to save Christmas.

  Santa Is a Nazi

  If you thought the Grinch stole Christmas, then you haven't been to Byam Elementary School in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. They bring new meaning to the term "War on Christmas."

  Every yuletide season, the school's PTO organizes a holiday shop. But they may as well be selling toilet paper because the volunteers aren't allowed to sell anything that might remind shoppers of Christmas.

  The gift shop banned Santa, candy canes, stockings, and any other "religious items." Even red and green tissue paper are no-no's, said Kathryn McMillan. She has a child who attends the school. The tissue paper was forbidden, she said, because it looked too "Christmassy."

  Needless to say, Kathryn was livid so she teamed up with another parent and made her concerns public. It only made things worse.

  "One of the parents said, 'If we allow Santa, what do we say if a child brings a swastika? Do we allow that, too?'"1 she told the Lowell Sun newspaper.

  The answer, of course, is to give the kid a swift kick in the behind and tell him about baby Jesus, but then again I'm not a professional educator so what do I know?

  "All I could think of was, are you kidding?" she said. "You're comparing a Christmas ornament to a swastika? It seems as if reason is lost somewhere, and I just hope we can find it again."

  Good luck with that.

  Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, is among those sickened by the mess. "Some may see this as simply absurd," he said. "We don't. We see it as pernicious: in the name of diversity and inclusion, the multicultural tyrants get to do what they have always wanted to do—censor Christmas."

  In the meantime the anti-Christmas Gestapo rules the day in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

  Jesus or the Snowman?

  Bellview Elementary School in Ashland, Oregon, is all about feelings. That's why Principal Michelle Zundel decided to ban the school's annual Christmas "giving tree."

  "The Christmas tree, while a secular symbol, according to the Supreme Court, does symbolize Christmas," she told KTVL-TV. "And if you are entering a public school and your family does not celebrate Christmas, then it feels like a religious symbol."2

  And of course we all know the story of Joseph and Mary exchanging presents under the Christmas tree at the Bethlehem Motel 6.

  You might be wondering what was so nefarious about the Bellview Elementary School Christmas tree. It turns out the tree was adorned with snowmen—tagged with the name of a gift that would be given to a needy child.

  Allison Hamik is responsible for the giving tree. She's pretty fired up over all this mess. "I don't see it as a religious symbol," she said. "I see it as part of our cultural traditions of the holiday season."

  In the end Principal Zundel uprooted the Christmas tree and tossed it to the curb—along with Santa Claus. (I suspect they believe he was at the birth of Jesus, too.) In their place she erected two giant snowmen, and brace yourself for the reason: "A snowman is created by children at play in the snow," the principal told the local television station. "So it doesn't have a particular religious bent."

  I always thought Frosty was an Episcopalian, one of the frozen chosen.

  Children Singing Praises to Allah

  A battle over religion is brewing in central Indiana after a public school wanted second-graders to sing a song declaring, "Allah is God." The phrase was removed just before the performance after a national conservative group launched a protest.

  The principal of Lantern Road Elementary School in Fishers, Indiana, said they were trying to teach inclusiveness through their holiday production. It included references to Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Las Posadas, and Kwanzaa. However, no other deity, other than Allah, was referenced in the show.

  "It went off . . . without a hitch," Danielle Thompson told The Indianapolis Star. "Several families thought it was a nice program."3

  But others did not, especially David Hogan. His daughter came home with a copy of the lyrics just days before the production. Hogan, a Christian, told the American Family Association, a conservative advocacy group, that he was deeply concerned to learn his daughter had been singing, "Allah is God."

  Here's what the children were assigned to sing:

  Allah is God, we recall at dawn,

  Praying 'til night during Ramadan

  At this joyful time we pray happiness for you,

  Allah be with you all your life through.

  But when it came time to perform the "Christian" part of Christmas, children were assigned to say:

  I didn't know there was a little boy at the manger. What child is this?

  I'm not sure if there was a little boy or not.

  Then why did you paint one on your nativity window?

  I just thought if there was a little boy, I'd like to know exactly what he (sic) say.

  Micah Clark, executive director of the Indiana AFA, launched an Internet protest once he heard about the allegations. "What surprised me here is that we've had a secular scrubbing of Christmas for so long and the school apparently didn't see the problem with kids singing to Allah," he told FOX News Radio. "You won't even mention Jesus, and you're going to force my child to sing about Allah?"4

  In e-mail correspondence the school initially defended the reference as a way to be inclusive of all religions. However, once complaints starting rolling in, school leaders decided to eliminate the Allah reference.

  This drew the ire of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana. "It's unfortunate if that was removed from the program just because of Islamophobic feelings," Shariq Siddiqui told The Indianapolis Star. "Schools are a place where we should learn more about each other rather than exclude each other based on stereotypes and misconceptions."5

  But Clark said having children bow and pray is problematic for non-Muslim families. "[This show] affirmed Islam and negated Christianity. I wouldn't have had a problem if it had been equal to all faiths."

  Judge Affirms Ban on Christmas Carols

  "We Three Kings of Orient" are no more, thanks to three judges in Philadelphia.

  The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a New Jersey school district's ban on Christmas carols, despite admitting in its ruling, "Certainly, those of us who were educated in the public schools remember holiday celebrations replete with Christmas carols and possibly even Hanukkah songs, to which no objection had been raised."

  The controversy surrounds a 2004 decision by the Maplewood-South Orange School District to ban religiously themed carols. It also banned the high school gospel choir from performing at a school assembly.

  The ban went so far as to forbid a school brass ensemble from performing instrumental versions of religious holiday songs. The lawsuit against the school was filed by a parent who argued his children's First Amendment rights had been violated.

  But the appeals court sided with the school district, wr
iting: "Since then, the governing principles have been examined and defined with more particularity. Many decisions about how to best create an inclusive environment in public schools, such as those at issue here, are left to the sound discretion of the school authorities."

  In other words, folks, the times they are a-changing.

  Run, Rudolph, Run

  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is too religious. That's the allegation from the mother of a child who attends Murrayville Elementary School in North Carolina. She was especially upset because the song included the words Christmas and Santa. The song had been included in the annual "holiday" concert performed by kindergartners.

  The miffed mom told the Wilmington Star News she wanted to have a Hanukkah song added to the musical lineup.6 However, Hanukkah Harry did not make the cut.

  The principal, fearing a lawsuit, relented and pulled the reindeer melody from the show. As you might imagine, this decision led to all sorts of problems. Parents dutifully expressed outrage. School administrators debated, lawyers were consulted, and an all-out investigation of Rudolph was launched to determine whether the red-nosed creature was religious or not.

  When all was said and done, the attorneys declared Rudolph was not a religious icon and, therefore, the song could be performed in the holiday show.

  I think I need another shot of egg nog.

  Town Bans Christmas Cross

  For nearly seventy years a cross erected on top of the hose tower at the Central Street Fire Station in Holliston, Massachusetts, served as a beacon of the Christmas season. But that all changed in 2004 when the Holliston Board of Selectmen ordered the cross removed over fears of a lawsuit.

  "Signs of the season are fine," Selectmen Chairman Andy Porter told the local newspaper. "But a cross is a symbol of religion versus a symbol of a holiday."7