Two Victories

On the eve of the Winter Holiday season, just a short note to report two secular progressive victories against Christianity, the now archaic Western religion.

The first is from across the pond, where our European intellectual betters have decided that displaying a crucifix is a violation of human rights. On November 2, 2009, the European Court of Human Rights fined the Italian government 5,000 Euro for having crucifixes in the classrooms in its schools.

Supporters of this decision should remain vigilant against a possible reactionary backlash. After all, this sort of thing has been tried in Europe before. The Nazis (generally considered more brutal in their methods than secular progressives) began removing crucifixes from Bavarian schools in 1937. The reactionary Catholic Bavarians (generally considered less temperamental than Italians) finally had enough in 1941, when in one town a crowd of over 500 confronted the mayor, relieved him of the contraband crucifixes, and, in a fit of religious intolerance, put the crucifixes back up in the local school. The lesson to be learned from this unfortunate incident is, obviously, that the Italian crucifixes should be destroyed immediately upon removal from the schools so that such mob violence can not be repeated.

Speaking of Nazis, they were also alluded to at a PTO meeting in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, in which town the PTO has banned any Christmas items from being sold at its holiday gift shop at the Byam [elementary] School. Banned items include red and green wrapping paper, which looks too “Christmasy”. As usual, some reactionary parents complained at a PTO meeting, but one of the parents present sensibly commented to the effect of, “But what if someone wanted to bring in swastikas to sell. Would that be OK, too?”

The local school Superintendent bravely supported the PTO. He stated that the PTO was taking a “conservative” position regarding the separation of church and state and that it was working well. He was apparently not asked to define “conservative.”

These two cases simply confirm that the West is post-Christian, which, in my view, indicates that we are in the extremely late stage of Western Civilization.

By W. Reed Smith

P.S. MERRY CHRISTMAS!