Every year we see reports of bans and lawsuits over nativity displays on public land, and of 'Silent Night' being banned from the grade school holiday concert somewhere in the US.

The feeling it always leaves me with is why, when Christian fathers still hold so much power and sway over all the other religious and secular cultures now resident in the US, do they feel such a powerful need to shove the religious aspects of Christmas down everyone's throats?

Last night a couple of us public school & public university educators got together at one of our houses for a winter break solstice get together, which we try and do every year. None of us are 'pagan' or anything like that, but we are all secularists, most of whom come from Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim families. Two of our numbers are Native American. We are pretty regular folks. We end up having some version of this conversation every year.

However, in the wake of the election this year, one among our ranks made an interesting comment. He said that the "holiday" season this year felt like a Republican fundamentalist season of triumphalism, akin to the loyalist marching season in Northern Ireland.

I have to admit, the comment really struck a nerve for me. This Christian triumphalist sort of attitudes seems to have markedly increased over the last decade or so (I would link it to the rise of both Republican and Democratic "Christian values" sorts of politicians, like Clinton and Bush), and now is becoming very blatant and 'in your face' for those of us secularists and non-Christians living in this bizarre, Christian dominated country known as the US of A.

And let me say, I don't have a particular problem with the secular aspects of the holiday, except the obvious--conspicuous consumerism, and the capitalist take over of the entire Halloween to New Years time frame for the annual profit-taking. It's this 'in your face' attitude that seems to have really gotten out of hand here in the US, especially since Bush's ascension in 2000.