Have a Holly Jolly (Holiday Season)

Politically Incorrect

Residents of the Willows senior apartment complex in Newhall, Ca. don't usually wish for a white Christmas because it rarely snows in Southern California.

However, until recently, they were forced to wish for just any kind of Christmas because the purveyors of social justice and political correctness decided that Christmas trees and menorahs on display in the building's common areas constituted an unlawful endorsement of religion. JB Partners Group, that owns the senior complex, told the residents that the time-honored displays had to come down, or else.

According to an article published Los Angeles Daily News, a JB supervisor named Wethanie Law told residents that the Christmas tree "had to be taken down because it's a religious symbol." 

JB's scrooge-like edict generated a firestorm of protest from residents. Max Greenis, who's one of the residents, even threatened to hold back his rent money to protest JB's decision. Said Greenis: "I've got grandkids and they come here and now they'll ask, 'Grandpa, where's the Christmas tree?' Then I'll have to explain that someone said we couldn't have one. What kind of message is that sending to the kids?"

The message that it sends is that Christmas, like Christianity isn't in vogue in America anymore. Rather, according to the secular promoters of political correctness, Christmas and Christianity represent bad symbols of white Europeans who invaded America centuries ago and forced the natives to adopt their customs. These folks, such as the people who operate JB Partners Group usually defend their actions by claiming that they're just trying to be fair to those who don't celebrate Christmas when they demand that trees and other Christmas symbols be removed.

But that's nonsense. Christmas is a federal holiday which means that it's completely lawful for Christmas trees and Nativity scenes to be on display in public and private settings. I don't personally celebrate Christmas because it's a holiday with pagan roots that was originally known as the Saturnalia until the Roman Catholic Church reinvented it many centuries ago as the birthday of Jesus Christ in order to recruit the pagans. If Christians want to celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Christ, then that's their business. But that decision should be up to them rather than up to government bureaucrats. 

Thankfully, the folks at JB Partners finally "saw the light" after the huge blowback from the Willows residents and they reversed their decision. The seniors at the complex will be allowed to display their Christmas trees and menorahs this year.

But next year? Who knows? The growing hostility toward Christmas underscores an even greater hostility toward Christianity in America and the western world. Unless Christians decide to "contend for the faith" as the apostle Jude (Jude 1:3) warned them to do 2,000 years ago, both Christmas and Christianity may be banned in more places in the future than just senior housing complexes.