Since the rest of the Utah blogosphere is abuzz with the news of Chris Buttars’ Christmas buffoonery, I might as well get into the game.
The West Jordan Republican is having a resolution drafted for the 2009 Legislature that he said asks retailers not to “exclude Christmas from your holiday greetings.” Resolutions, of course, cannot be enforced.
Buttars said he is seeking the resolution because he was contacted by several employees of a retailer he declined to name that had been told they couldn’t say “Merry Christmas” to customers.
“We have a war on Christmas,” Buttars said, invoking the battle fought this time of year by conservatives nationwide, including, since 2005, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, who has said the issue is at the center of the nation’s culture war ( “Buttars says bah to ‘holiday’ greetings,” Deseret News).
Oh, so many buttons. Where to begin? How about the fact that the entire War on Christmas is a complete canard? Or that trying to repair the integrity of Christmas through marketing slogans is oxymoronic? Rob of The Utah Amicus recently noted
…I don’t know of anyone who has been converted to a Christ-like-life by the words, “Christmas Sale.” Although I uphold any person’s freewill to patronize an establishment because they do use the word Christmas in their advertising, or when greeting customers, it is my opinion that the real war is within, and it’s not promoting Christ’s love when we force establishments to use the word Christmas so that we will give them our dollars regardless if they believe in the word, and it’s significance, or not…isn’t turning the words, “Merry Christmas” into a wedge issue to divide us, and forcing its use to insure the exchange of money about as un-Christ-like as it gets ( “Davis County Clipper Partylines—Is there still a war against Christmas?“) ?
Then there is the fact that the U.S. is not a Christian nation as Buttars believes. Not to mention the fact that such legislation is either an infringement on freedom of speech (by pressuring people to change the terminology they choose) or—as a resolution with no enforcement power—is nothing more than message legislation, and thus a pointless waste of legislator time and taxpayer money.
Buttars did it again. Every time you think he can’t get any more ridiculous, he trumps himself. If you were to try to dream up a caricature of the modern conservative, could you outdo him?
Tags: Christmas, freedom of speech, separation of Church and State, war on Christmas
A Liberal Mormon 
December 3, 2008 at 12:19 pm |
Things like this really irritate me. Why do taxpayers have to have their taxes wasted on message bills, when the legislature ought to spend more time talking about issues that actually could make a difference in our lives.
December 3, 2008 at 4:07 pm |
“Every time you think he can’t get any more ridiculous, he trumps himself. If you were to try to dream up a caricature of the modern conservative, could you outdo him?”
My thoughts exactly. I was SOOOO hoping this would be the year that voters gave him the boot, but no. Two more years at least. Unless he gets thrown out for something more egregious than we can even imagine.
December 4, 2008 at 9:30 am |
A great article on this issue:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/the-religious-rights-war_b_145751.html
Huffington has been annoying me lately on some things, but I really enjoyed this.
December 6, 2008 at 8:39 am |
Buttars’ name has been associated a lot with Bill O’Reilly’s lately as crusading under the same banner. They are the caricature of the conservative, unfortunately. Sometimes I wonder if such people are really agents provocateur attempting to destroy the genuine conservative movement. O’Reilly–very likely. Buttars–he’s more likely a vestige of the fading Taliban wing of the Mormon Church.
December 6, 2008 at 9:04 am |
I hope the “Taliban wing” is fading, but I’m not holding my breath.
For whom might you suspect people like O’Reilly are acting?
December 11, 2008 at 8:28 pm |
[…] a perfectly reasonable statement is hateful, intolerant, disparaging, and an attack. In Utah, howling monkey Chris Buttars has introduced a resolution to “not exclude Christmas from their holiday greetings.” Et […]
December 14, 2008 at 6:27 pm |
As a citizen of The United States of America, I am worried that Buttars has such a position of power. More saddening still, is the fact that a community in Utah re-elected him.