What Grinch? Fox's Hemmer and Camerota mislead on "War on Christmas" story
Fox News' America's Newsroom aired a segment hyping a story on an elementary school in Boston that had prohibited Christmas-themed gifts from being sold in the school's holiday gift shop, which co-host Bill Hemmer suggested is evidence of "the War on Christmas ... raging again." However, the school's ban reportedly includes all items that can be associated with a specific religion and is not limited to Christmas.
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America's Newsroom says the "War on Christmas" is "underway," "raging" because of school ban on Christmas items in holiday gift shop
From the November 17 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:
HEMMER (co-host): Hey, can you have a holiday fundraiser without the holiday? I mean, you know, can you?
ALISYN CAMEROTA (guest co-host): I think it's just called a fundraiser.
HEMMER: I see. One school is saying no candy canes, no red and green wrapping paper --
CAMEROTA: What?
HEMMER: -- and absolutely, positively no such thing as Santa Claus. Is the War on Christmas yet raging again? Already?
[...]
CAMEROTA: Well, the air is getting a little crisp these days. Thanksgiving, of course, is just around the corner. And that means the War on Christmas is underway.
The latest battle is in Chelmsford, Massachusetts -- that's just north of Boston -- and apparently the gift shop at the local elementary school has some new rules this year. Let's just say the Grinch could have written them. Fox-25 in Boston explains the items you won't find at the gift shop.
[...]
CAMEROTA: All right, that was Fox-25's Frank Mallicoat reporting. Red and green tissue paper is a separation of church and state? No Santa Claus?
HEMMER: I can't make sense of it, you know? When I saw my first Christmas lights up before Halloween, I knew the economy was really hurting. I mean, they're telling America, "Buy. We need the money."
CAMEROTA: Incredible what's going on. We should also note that two parents plan to protest the decision before the school's committee later this month, so we'll keep you posted as to what happens there.
However, the ban reportedly extends to all religious holidays, not just Christmas
WFXT Fox-25: School ban included "all Christmas, Hanukkah and other 'religious items' from being sold." According to an article on the local Fox affiliate WFXT Fox-25's website, "The Byam Elementary School has decided to ban Santa, candy canes, stockings, and all Christmas, Hanukkah and other 'religious items' from being sold at the annual holiday gift shop." The report also says that superintendent Donald Yeoman asserted "that the rules were mandated so that no child would be left out."
Lowell Sun quotes superintendent saying ban has been in place for years. The Lowell Sun, a local newspaper, also noted that the ban included "Hanukkah and other 'religious items' " and quoted Yeoman as saying the store had "operated under those same rules for a number of years with success and without complaint."
Boston Globe: "Longstanding" ban is on "religious items." The Boston Globe reported on November 17 that the school's policy is "longstanding" and bans "religious items." From the article:
A Chelmsford elementary school's holiday gift fund-raiser is at the center of a town controversy after two residents complained about a longstanding policy banning religious items at the annual event.
Each year, parents purchase small trinkets and donate them to the parent teacher organization at Byam Elementary School. During the day, students buy the items to give as gifts for family members, and the PTO receives the profits, said Donald Yeoman, Chelmsford's superintendent.
In 1982, recognizing a diverse student body of different religions, the PTO and school banned anything "to do with a religion or a religious celebration,'' Yeoman said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/S0_01
You and I as veterans of this god awful war will have plenty of tales to tell them.
Why even have it then?
Parents buy little trinkets, then donate them to the gift shop.
Kids then go in, buy an item, give it to a family member, and the PTO gets the purchase price. Kids don't have to go to a 'store' to buy things for their family and friends this way, and the PTO gets money.
But the store is not intended to sell holiday items. It's intended to sell gifts to be given during the holiday.
I think the ban goes a little overboard, but it should be up to the local community to iron-out. They don't need a torrent of Fox "News" dingbats from all over getting into the fray.
Just ask the parents/children/teachers/administration of the school that sang the Obama song.
The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ.
Old bumper sticker.
SHOW US YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE JESUS!!!!!!!
I think secular progressives need to step it up a bit, take off the kiddie gloves. If this much hysteria is caused from episodes like banning religious items from school gift shops or having Target say "Happy Holidays" imagine the damage that could be done if they even attempted to eliminate Christmas as a federal holiday. The whole conservative movement might implode on itself just due to the utter chaos it would cause.
As a "woman of a certain age," I can tell you that I've been hearing "Happy Holidays" my whole life. The song "Happy Holiday" was written in 1942 for the movie "Holiday Inn" with BuhBuhBuhBing Crosby. [That was in my mother's childhood.] Was the "War on Christmas" raging then, too? Give me a break!
Sorry, left out that important little phrase.
Also the same movie where he sings "White Christmas"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034862/synopsis
seems fine they cherry pick what media matters sees fit to report on the other news station.
I watched that story today, and it was more than just about selling gifts from one religion.
But then again media matters is all about spewing DNC krap.
This War on X-Mas is getting rather pathetic and since Cluster Fox is the only place were one can find it being fought... well, if the shoe fits
I was called everything but a Patriotic American; with one women who called herself "italiansexgoddess" who said she was Catholic calling me and anyone that tried to reason with her an a**h**e, f**king idiot and f**king everything she could think of in the name of Jesus of course.
You don't mess with these radical people and for gods sake don't tell them that the USA was NOT established by our founding fathers to be a Christian country. If they could of got to me I wouldn't be writing this.
What never went away? Fox's War on Journalism!
"Angels we have heard on high, telling us 'go out and buy'"
Actually, that was Tom Lehrer.
There *is* no other religion but Christianity!!
The rest of us are beyond the pale and *should* be regularly (and forcefully where necessary) exposed to Christian icons, beliefs, prayers, values, and symbols so that eventually we are worn down into acceptance.
Good God! We are probably atheistic communist-fascists!!
/sarcasm off
What would Jesus say, if he passed you on the street during the holidays? And what would He think the signs should say that hang above the GI Joes, Barbies, video war games, and guns? Would he care?
The "War on Christmas" is not waged by heathen/atheist/agnostic/secular citizens, but by the far-right fundies and talking heads masquerading as Christians who seek to impose their ideology on everyone till now the joy of Christmas is gone. I get a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach every year a couple of months before the holiday season, just anticipating the assault by the theocrats on the season itself--their attacks on stores that don't put up the "correct" signs, clerks who don't use the "correct" greeting, schools that don't have the "correct" programs or activities, towns that don't put up the "correct" lights or displays. I am afraid to say any greeting to a clerk or passerby for fear I will be spat upon. I do not even want to go out in public during the so-called holiday season. They have already started attacks on the Obama's for what they are or are not doing by way of celebration in the White House, all lies and innuendoes. Do you remember even the attacks on their beloved chosen-by-God-himself President Bush because his holiday card did not say "Merry Christmas" or show a Nativity scene? Brent Bozell, I believe it was, threw his in the trash. I suppose my friends and family throw away my cards because they say "Peace." Apparently X-ians no longer take any pleasure in the season, because they are so seething with rage at those who celebrate differently than they do, and speak different greetings. It seems to me that this holiday season should be for all of us, to celebrate as we choose, no offense meant, no offense taken. The blood that flows warm through my veins is not the blood of the early X-ians, who were of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean blood, but the blood of the Pagan Celts of the British Isles and Northern Europe, and like them I will celebrate the Winter Solstice by bringing in the greens, the tree, the logs, decorating with lights and baubles, baking breads and cakes, preparing a steaming kettle of cider or the like, and saying, to each and every person, and to you,
GUT YUL