# Xmas and the First Amendment **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 24, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973 "2012-12-24T02:15:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/82 "2012-12-25T01:20:18Z")
Actually, I just googled Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday and Presidents’ Day and Martin Luther King Day and discovered a lot of things I’ve thought (and asserted here) were wrong, including that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/83 "2012-12-25T02:00:37Z")
Yeah, stop making bold statements of fact without verification! You’ll absolute your eye out. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/84 "2012-12-25T02:17:02Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Actually, I just googled Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday and Presidents’ Day and Martin Luther King Day and discovered a lot of things I’ve thought (and asserted here) were wrong, including that. You’ve been holidazed. ---
**Author:** ![gatorslap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/85 "2012-12-25T03:07:45Z")
I don’t consider Christmas a religious holiday at all. In Scotland, December 25 was a regular working day up until the 1940s. Scotland had been a Christian country for over a millennium. It became a holiday due to cultural influence from England, not religion. Before that, Yule was celebrated, but the major holiday was New Year’s, which was when people gave gifts and such. America isn’t Scotland, but the situation is somewhat similar. Christmas wasn’t widely celebrated in early America, and the country wasn’t any more Christian than it previously had been when they finally made it an official holiday. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/86 "2012-12-25T03:24:36Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Seriously? I think those signs, and the sentiment they espouse, are stupid as shit, but how is an exhortation by and (presumably) to Christians saying “Fuck the Constitution”? It’s not like the government put up those signs, nor are they directed at the government.s. Indeed, those signs are there because of the Bill of Rights, which gives everyone the right to espouse their faith. PRR- Would you really pass laws saying that a private org can’t promote a religion? I am not a Christian and I celebrate Christmas. I means, it’s really mostly secular- Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/87 "2012-12-25T03:25:02Z")
> [@gatorslap](#): > > I don’t consider Christmas a religious holiday at all. > > In Scotland, December 25 was a regular working day up until the 1940s. Scotland had been a Christian country for over a millennium. It became a holiday due to cultural influence from England, not religion. Before that, Yule was celebrated, but the major holiday was New Year’s, which was when people gave gifts and such. > > America isn’t Scotland, but the situation is somewhat similar. Christmas wasn’t widely celebrated in early America, and the country wasn’t any more Christian than it previously had been when they finally made it an official holiday. The celebration of Christmas has waxed and waned since the Middle Ages. At times it was a huge celebration, and at other times reaction swung the other way. From the wikipedia article: > [@](#): > > By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where various magnates celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten.[103] The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form.[103] “Misrule”—drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling—was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year’s Day, and there was special Christmas ale.[103] > > Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival that incorporated ivy, holly, and other evergreens.[127] Christmas gift-giving during the Middle Ages was usually between people with legal relationships, such as tenant and landlord.[127] The annual indulgence in eating, dancing, singing, sporting, and card playing escalated in England, and by the 17th century the Christmas season featured lavish dinners, elaborate masques and pageants. In 1607, King James I insisted that a play be acted on Christmas night and that the court indulge in games.[128] It was during the Reformation in 16th–17th century Europe that many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.[72] Celebration of Christmas in early America depended on where you were and whose religions traditions you were following: > [@](#): > > In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[107] > > At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Pennsylvania German Settlers, pre-eminently the Moravian settlers of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia Settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas trees in America as well as the first Nativity Scenes.[133] Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.[134] George Washington attacked Hessian (German) mercenaries on the day after Christmas during the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, Christmas being much more popular in Germany than in America at this time. But I have to admit it’s funny watching people argue that Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday. It’s like saying the 4th of July, Independence Day, isn’t an American holiday. Is Christmas an official holiday in any country that doesn’t have a dominant Christian tradition? ---
**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/88 "2012-12-25T03:38:58Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Why in the world would a non-Christian celebrate Christmas? Huh? Assuming your question is serious, for this non-Christian it’s because it’s traditional and quite enjoyable - trees, lights and decorations; parades, parties, food and drink; music and old movies; excited children, exchanging gifts, the company of friends and family…I mean, why would in the world would anyone not celebrate it? ---
**Author:** ![gatorslap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/89 "2012-12-25T03:47:54Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But I have to admit it’s funny watching people argue that Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday. It’s like saying the 4th of July, Independence Day, isn’t an American holiday. It’s a Christian holiday. But not exclusively. > [@](#): > > Is Christmas an official holiday in any country that doesn’t have a dominant Christian tradition? Jordan, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka that I know of. Taiwan too, but that’s kind of a coincidence (it’s Constitution Day). It’s widely celebrated without being an official holiday in some other countries like Japan and Thailand. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/90 "2012-12-25T05:25:11Z")
> [@gatorslap](#): > > It’s a Christian holiday. But not exclusively. > > Jordan, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka that I know of. Taiwan too, but that’s kind of a coincidence (it’s Constitution Day). OK, good points. Note that Lebanon was, in the not distant past, a mostly Christian coutnry under French influence. Jordan, while not a Christian country has Christian roots tracing back to the very beginning of Christianity. I probably should have said is not it a public holiday anywhere that it is not rooted in a religious holiday. In both those countries, the celebration is rooted in a Christian tradition. Not to mention that Muslims revere both Jesus and Mary, his mother. But that is still religious in nature. Christmas is a holiday in the US because of its religious nature. When it was declared an official holiday in the late 19th century, the US was an overwhelmingly Christian country. It still remains majority Christian, if less so than int 1870. It’s not an accident that Christmas is a holiday throughout the Christian world, whether Christian by current majority or CHristian by tradition. It is simply laughable to ignore the correlation between the celebration of Christmas and the historical extent of Christianity by country. Any day can be declared a holiday, but Christmas isn’t just any day. It is the celebration of the birth of the founder of the Christian religion. It absorbed elements of pagan religions once prevalent in Europe, but those religions are long gone, relegated to the most minority of status. > [@](#): > > It’s widely celebrated without being an official holiday in some other countries like Japan and Thailand. We celebrate _Cinco de Mayo_ in the US, but that doesn’t make us Mexican. Nor does the widely celebrated St Patrick’s day make us Irish. And you don’t see majorities of people attending Christian Churches on Christmas in those countries as you do in the US. I’m still waiting for someone to address my question about how many Christian holidays would it take to make the government tilt towards favoring Christianity over other religions? Name one other religion that has a US national holiday associate with it. Only Christianity gets that distinction. At least with “In God we trust” you can spread “God” over multiple religions. “In Christ we trust” wouldn’t cut it. And so shouldn’t Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/91 "2012-12-25T06:07:35Z")
John Mace, I’m highly dubious of the claim that 62% of Americans attend religious services on Christmas. This sounds to me like the claim that 40% of Americans attend religious services in any given week. For a long time this statistic was accepted by demographers, since it was what a number of polls showed. There was some suspicion that it wasn’t correct though. The polls simply asked people if they had attended religious services in the past week with no additional verification. Finally someone decided to actually count the number of people at religious services in a given area. They found that the number who were there was a little less than 20% of the population, so the percentage of Americans who claim to go to religious services in any given week is more than twice the percentage who actually go to them. Similar counts elsewhere show the same thing. The problem is that Americans lie like crazy about their religious practices (and perhaps even about their religious beliefs, although that’s harder to be sure of). Most religious people want to believe that they attend services frequently, even if they aren’t really very consistent in their attendance. When they were asked on those polls if they had attended services in the past week, they often said they did even if they hadn’t. They were saying to themselves that the most recent week was just an anomaly (even if it wasn’t) and that it was thus more “accurate” for them to lie and say that they had attended services that week, even when they hadn’t. I suspect that the same is true of the poll when it asks people if they have attended Christmas services. If they have ever attended them in past years, they might lie and say that they did this year too, since they consider the lie to be more “accurate.” I’m even more dubious about the poll number claiming that 78% of Americans “take time to reflect on the birth of Christ” around Christmas. What does that even mean? Is that anything more than just noting what the origin of Christmas is? If that’s all it means, then all of you took time to reflect on the birth of Christ too just by posting to this thread. These sorts of self-reporting polls are always to be taken with a grain of salt. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/92 "2012-12-25T06:34:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It is simply laughable to ignore the correlation between the celebration of Christmas and the historical extent of Christianity by country. Any day can be declared a holiday, but Christmas isn’t just any day. It is the celebration of the birth of the founder of the Christian religion. It absorbed elements of pagan religions once prevalent in Europe, but those religions are long gone, relegated to the most minority of status. > > Name one other religion that has a US national holiday associate with it. Sure there’s a correlation. A correlation does not mean equal. Christmas, what with Santa, Frosty & Rudolph is a secular holiday. Look at the top Christmas songs: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=674812&highlight=amazon](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=674812&highlight=amazon) You have to get to #9 before you get a song with Jesus. Hell, #2 is the Chipmunks. You know, those deeply religious figures, St Simon, St Theo & St Alvin? :rolleyes: Top Christmas films: > **[The 30 Best Christmas Movies & 2 Thanksgiving Flicks](https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000059952/)** Not a Jesus or a manger to be seen. As far as legal holidays which are from another faith, of course you have forgotten New Years, a very pagan holiday. Of the other legal holidays in America- they are all patriotic. Independence day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Presidents day, etc. And of course, Christmas has absorbed quite a number of pagan traditions, and in fact my Pagan friends celebrate Yule or the Solstice. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/93 "2012-12-25T07:02:13Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I say let 'em have Christmas, if they agree to shut up about absolutely everything else. Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/94 "2012-12-25T08:10:42Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Christmas is a holiday in the US because of its religious nature. I really doubt that. If aliens zapped humanity with mind control rays and eliminated all religion, I think that at least in the US you’d see only a small drop in the celebration of Christmas. You’d see Nativity scenes and such vanish, but not the central practices of the holiday; gift exchanges, meeting with family, the Christmas dinner, Christmas trees, colored lights, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/95 "2012-12-25T09:00:01Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Sure looks like it to me. > > Perhaps we should change it from 12/25 to 12/21 and go back to celebrating the solstice. Makes more sense to do it that way. Right, because instead of celebrating the supposed birth of a religious figure we should go back to celebrating the fact that the sun is magically coming back. _Much_ more sensible. :rolleyes: \<— yup, can spare one of these for you too. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/96 "2012-12-25T11:22:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Indeed, those signs are there because of the Bill of Rights, which gives everyone the right to espouse their faith. PRR- Would you really pass laws saying that a private org can’t promote a religion? Quite the opposite. I encourage people to advertise (and thus reveal) the stupid shit they believe in, thus giving others sound reasons to discount their opinions in general. I believe the Bill of Rights is serving is well in this. Doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid, offensive shit, though. They are, in this instance, insisting that we “keep Christ in Christmas,” which I take as evidence that certain believing Christians do consider it to be a religious holiday. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/97 "2012-12-25T12:53:10Z")
What are we discussing here anyway? Seems to me there are several disparate conversations going on at once: 1. Everyone wants a day off work, and no one wants to lose December 25th as a day off. And I’ve heard it argued that even atheists want to get the same day off that religious people want so they can coordinate their vacation plans (or something like that). Personally, this makes no sense to me, in that when I get a day off work, I don’t much care what day it is or who else is off. 2. Christmas is not a religious holiday, it’s a secular holiday. This is stuff and nonsense, to my mind: BECAUSE many non-religious people have been compelled to take a day off work over the years, and have no use for religious practices, they have come to include various secular practices that overlap slightly with the religious practices (gift-giving, putting up trees indoors, drinking eggnog, etc.), but to my mind this is akin to arguing that drinking beer and farting on July 4th is a patriotic act because July 4th is a day to celebrate patriotism. 3. Having December 25th designated as a Federal holiday violates the First Amendment’s prohibition of a state endorsement of religion. This is the interesting one to me. Actually, it’s quite dull, since I believe that is true on the face of it, but it’s interesting to me that so many think that there is anything worth debating here, or even that it’s crystal clear but in the opposite way that I think it is. There may be other debates going on here, too, but it seems to me that these have very little to do with each other. I like this sort of debate (the third one I listed) because it’s such a pure debate: I don’t expect to see any practical changes in my lifetime as a result of winning or losing the debate, I don’t much care what happens here as long as I continue to get the day off work, and we have a text to debate here, giving us a solid basis for the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/98 "2012-12-25T13:19:50Z")
Does declaring a federal holiday do anything other than close federal offices and pay federal workers for not working? Is the Christmas holiday only given to federal workers who are Christian? Does taking a day off on a day with traditional religious traditions establish that as the official religion of the state? > [@](#): > > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion There is a lot of room for interpretation in the establishment clause. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/99 "2012-12-25T13:38:45Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#): > > Does declaring a federal holiday do anything other than close federal offices and pay federal workers for not working? Is the Christmas holiday only given to federal workers who are Christian? > > Does taking a day off on a day with traditional religious traditions establish that as the official religion of the state? > > There is a lot of room for interpretation in the establishment clause. Well, every word in the Constitution has room for interpretation. I would argue that designating a legal federal holiday in honor of Christ’s birth is making a “law respecting an establishment of religion.” I would question which religions the federal government honors in such a way. All religions? Some religions? Random religions? When the religion being singled out for special treatment also happens to be the nominal religion of the ruling classes, or of over 90% of the judges passing judgment on its constitutionality, then yeah, I’d see this as a very questionable judgment. It would be interesting if judges raised in a Christian household, or belonging to a Christian church, would recuse themselves in these cases (as is only fair) and allow the law to be settled by Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Buddhist etc. judges, who would be ruling on whether this establishment of a legal holiday violates the first amendment. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/100 "2012-12-25T13:43:53Z")
Violation or not, I don’t see what can be done. People aren’t being forced to participate; you’d have to force them to stop. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973/101 "2012-12-25T13:47:12Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Violation or not, I don’t see what can be done. People aren’t being forced to participate; you’d have to force them to stop. I agree. I’m just pointing out the blatent hypocrisy. I’d like to live in a country that refuses to acknowledge religion other than as a personal and private belief. Unfortunately I don’t. Even more unfortunately, most of my countrymen argue that we do live such in a country. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-and-the-first-amendment/644973.md?page=6)