It's Official. The Catholic League Is Insane.

Okay, here's the story. Somebody at Wal-Mart got snarky with a customer over their policy of having greeters say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Here's what said Wal-Mart employee sent out:

“Walmart is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this. The majority of the world still has different practices other than ‘christmas’ which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism. The colors associated with ‘christmas’ red and white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom. Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world.”

Now, there's nothing in there that's terribly inaccurate. I know. I know. You can quibble over bits and pieces here and there, but the essence of the story is that the traditions related to the Christian Christmas holiday are anything but Christian in origin. Christianity has a long history of "re-purposing" local traditions to ease the conversion of the locals. It's not a big deal. So, a Wal-Mart employee who's actually taken a Comparative Religion class decides to point this out to a customer, trying to spread a little enlightenment.

Boy, was that a mistake! The Catholic League freaked! And, of course, Wal-Mart rolled over and fired the person, since the CL has its fingers in a lot of pies. How very Christian of the Wal-Mart and the Catholic League to see to it that someone is fired right before the holidays. Gotta love it.

Did the Catholic League ever stop to think that maybe a greeter isn't Christian, and would find it against his or her religion to wish someone "Merry Chistmas"? No, but then, they cover themselves there, because:

Wal-Mart says it is not going to change its policy of encouraging employees to say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas.’ This is dumb, but it was never part of the Catholic League’s complaint. We only trigger boycotts when we’ve been grossly offended.

That's right. They call this policy dumb. They frequently call things insane and dumb in the relevant news releases. And these people have influence with "126 religious organizations".

*shudder*

See these three posts for the Catholic League's original three news releases.

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