Why the pro-life movement is losing. Even with anti-abortion groups.

Pro-life is the movement that works to prevent abortion. They believe that life begins at conception and by having an abortion and ending that life a grave sin is being committed.

The opposing opinion is pro-choice. This movement is hard to hammer down, some people believe life begins at conception and others do not. There are varying opinions of when a woman "should" have an abortion, but the one thing that holds pretty true to the pro-choice movement is that the decision about whether or not to have an abortion is up to each individual women.

I personally don't like the idea of having an abortion. I think fetuses are a life and deserve a chance at being born whenever possible. I also refuse to align myself with the pro-life movement, and I know that I'm not the only person in this boat.

First, the pro-life movement is extremely controlling. And force is never the way to stop somebody from doing something. When a young girl is pregnant and scared and feels like she doesn't have any other option, accusing her of contemplating murder is not going to help the situation. Telling her boyfriend that driving her to the abortion clinic makes him an accessory to murder also does not help the situation. Jesus would not be so mean and forceful. He would not shove images of bloody fetuses in the face of a scared teenager. The solution is love, compassion, understanding, and education.

The pro-life movement also doesn't tend to support real education. In order to have an abortion, you have to be pregnant. So the best way to prevent abortion is to prevent unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. And the best way to prevent unplanned pregnancy is to educate women and men (including teenagers) about how to not get pregnant. There are more unplanned pregnancies in less educated environments than in very educated environments. Because in very educated environments the people know about all the options (and usually can also afford various options or have health coverage for various options) of birth control, while in less educated environments people don't have the knowledge or means to have as many options for birth control. The pro-life movements solution is people should just stop having sex, well good luck with that. I think education is a more realistic way to prevent pregnancy.

One of the biggest reasons I can't bring myself to identify with the pro-life movement is it's insistent on using "tag words" and propaganda that may or may not be true without digging deeper to into the real issues to solve the real problems. A real thing that happens that everybody can agree on is that there are tests that can be done during a pregnancy to find out various things about the baby. Is it a boy or a girl? Is it healthy? Is there a possibility that the baby could have a disability? There are even tests that can be done to find out if the baby has diseases that will lead to early death, to vision impairment, and a slew of other things parents may or may not want or need to know before the baby is born. After these tests, some people choose to terminate the baby. Terminating a pregnancy because of a possible disability is terrible. Saying that pro-choicers are out to eliminate and kill people with disabilities is stupid.

It is also true that a lot of minority women have abortions. This is a term that pro-lifers have labeled "black genocide".  Don't you think there might be other factors contributing to the fact that lots of black babies are being aborted? Like to aforementioned undereducated environments that are generally mostly minorities, of which black is one. If 30 black women get pregnant and 10 white women get pregnant and 10% of each racial group has an abortion, then 3 black babies and 1 white baby were aborted. This is not genocide, this is the racial gap in education and wealth. Does it really make sense that the pro-choice movement, made up of mostly liberals, who also generally fight for racial equality, would commit a crime like black genocide because they want less black people around? Or does it make more sense that the pro-life group made up of mostly rich white dudes would completely ignore the fact that some people are not rich white dudes?

Like I said before, the solution to less abortions is not telling women they don't get to have control over their own bodies. It's educating men and women on how to be safe and healthy and not have unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. Women spend enough time being told they have no control over their own lives, choices, and bodies, calling them murders for wanting that control back is not going to get you very far.  I am not pro-abortion. In fact, I would rather people not have abortions when given the choice. But maybe she should be given the education and the choice, and with love and compassion abortions will decrease. Instead of just yelling.

When did Brett Favre become God?

I understand why people get freaked out when cases of pedophilia happen in the church, and some people cover it up and weird things happen. I don't think it's right to cover up those things, but with a religion it ends up being so close to someone's heart people get weird about it and forget that sometimes  things are more important. It makes sense. (like I said, I think it's wrong, but at least there is logic behind the weird things that are happening)

I don't understand how the same thing happens with football. Football, no matter what Americans think, is not a religion. Brett Favre is not God and Peyton Manning is not Jesus and Andrew Luck is not the second coming of Christ. Somehow, we have turned a really great sport into a religion. We worship the players, who are unworthy of worship. And we act like the idea of not having football is the worst thing that could possibly happen in life.

Football, the sporting event that involves thinking about plays and then running into people while eating food you really shouldn't eat, is something I love a lot. Football the religion, I hate. The religion of Football is homophobic, sexist, violent, and becoming more and more corrupt. That is not ok.

Look at what happened with places like Penn State and Steubenville? Penn State spent 10 years covering up the rape of boys. Sure Jerry Sandusky is in jail now, but when it was all going down people were upset about the football team. Those poor football players will have to suffer because of this trial and the fallout of this case. And Joe Paterno can do no wrong, and the entire football program was protected by the school. The school was helping the football program hide the fact that one of their coaches was regularly raping little boys. And people were worried about the FOOTBALL TEAM??

In Steubenville a football team raped a drunk girl. Because that's not bad enough, later more high school boys made a youtube video laughing and joking about what it is like to have sex with a "dead girl". (They didn't realize the girl was drunk and not dead, that is how incapacitated she was). The city of Steubenville is divided on the issue because while the girl was raped, she was also drunk..so it was kind of her fault and those poor boys are going to have to live with this the rest of their lives. And they don't want this to ruin their teams chances of winning the championship! Seriously.

Football players committing rape has become such a regular activity that even the left leaning new york times phrases it like this "...an unconscious girl had been sexually assaulted over several hours while others watched. She may have even been urinated on." Because being peed on is so much worst than being raped. (Both are terrible, but, I mean, rape is obviously the worse option).

How many players on the NFL have committed rape? More than I can even count. And the response is always, well she is doing it for money and we don't want to ruin his career. Because god forbid we tarnish the NFL over something as silly as rape. She was probably wearing clothes anyways, so that means she was asking for him to take them off right? (Ben Rothesberger and Kobe Bryant are still huge stars, and yes I know Kobe doesn't play football, but he needed to be mentioned here). Shouldn't there be a rule that says once you have raped somebody you can't play professional sports anymore? That seems fair to me, but in our society we don't want rape to ruin a mans life. Because if rapists couldn't play football all of our favorite players would be kicked out of the sport. And then what? Obviously we would all die, I guess.

Football is one of the few institutions that is openly and comfortably homophobic. When the Boy Scouts were homophobic people wrote letters and protested and said that boys should be allowed to be Eagle Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation. When marriage was homophobic people protested. When the military was homophobic people fought to get DADT repealed. When schools are homophobic kids are taught not to bully, that everybody is allowed to be themselves. But when football is homophobic, boys will be boys. In football it's still OK to bully, it's still OK to tell boys they will have to stay in the closet or lost everything. In football being gay is still the worst possibly offense. Why?

I don't know if the Manti Te'o thing was an elaborate beard scheme or not, but the more details I hear about it the more I think it was. (beard: a person of the opposite sex being used by a gay person to disguise their gayness. As in, a beard is a great disguise). In case you live under a rock or don't follow sports drama here's a quick debrief: Manti had a GF who died of Leukemia. Sad. But then we found out the girl was actually a dude who had been scamming everyone and acting as the GF. Weird. Manti claims he wasn't in on it. In an interview with Diane Sawyer she asks Manti if he's gay, his response was "no, no, no. FAR from it. Definitely not".  Later, the scammer is asked why he decided to end the scam and he says it was because he was in love with Manti.

My theory: Manti is gay, he fell in love with scammer but knew he couldn't come out. He would lose his career if he did. So they made up this girl. Then as scammer fell deeper in love he didn't want to lie anymore, Manti didn't want to lose everything. And the whole thing blew up in their faces. (I don't know why they killed her off. Even if Manti wasn't in on it I don't get why she was killed off)

All this because being gay in football means losing your NFL career. Manti was a first round pick and now, he's not. Side note: being part of a scam drops you down more in the draft than rape. Are you starting to see how insane this is?  Being gay is a huge offense, but being a rapist is just another part of being a pro-football player.

That is what we tell kids. Boys, eventually you should find yourself at a bar waiting for a hot waitress to bring you a beer and you should hit on her. She is nothing more than an object. Girls, you should strive to be an object. Find a guy who thinks you're hot. Don't worry about being healthy, it's about being hot. If you fight for your intelligence we will call you angry and man-hating.

Oh, but you can be anything you want to be. Good luck kids!

We can't tell kids to stop bullying if adults are bullies. And we can't tell kids they can be anything they want to be if when they are adults that won't be true. And we can't tell little girls their body is their own if when they grow up their body actually belongs to the football player that decides he wants to rape her. And canceling a season of football to prevent rape seems ok to me. Because football is not actually a religion.

Protect the 2nd amendment

Much like the Bible, people think they know what the constitution says but really they have no idea. So I'm here to help you all out. Here is the actual text of the second amendment straight from the constitution:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

Here are a few quick definitions so we all know what we are talking about:

Keep: To retain possession

Bear: to carry. 

Regulated: control or supervise by the means of rules and regulations. 

Regulations: A rule or directive made or maintained by an authority. 

Security: The state of being free from danger or threat

Militia: A military force of civilians to supplement a regular army in an emergency

Arms: Weapons and ammunition

Infringed: Act as to limit or encroach on. 

So in plain english:

A well controlled and supervised militia being necessary to maintain a state free from danger and threat the right of the people to retain possession of and carry weapons and ammunition shall not be encroached upon. 

It is fair to say that the wording of that amendment can be interpreted in many different ways, thereby causing the outrageous gun debate that we are now having in this country. It is also fair to say that we don't really have a need for a militia anymore. Our military is the largest in the world (one of the largest? I don't really keep track of the size of militaries), and the really great thing about having a powerful military is that the civilians can just not worry about it. (thanks soldiers). So that begs the question, if we can admit that we no longer require a militia, then do we still need the people to have the right to keep and bear arms? I mean, that was written so that average joe guy could protect himself during wartimes. 

Well, for protection, yes. It can be argued that the right of the people to keep and bear arms for their own protection is still important. (I wouldn't argue it, but it could be argued). We also need to remember that when the Constitution was written the only arms people were keeping were muskets and bullets. There were no handguns, rifles, AR's and definitely no 100 round magazines. So in order to be truly and honest logical about the Constitutional right to have guns, we have to think about what it means. 

The whole purpose of the right to bear arms is to ensure the security of the state. One of the best ways to ensure security back when America was just a toddler was with a militia. Our military then was not what it is today and the people needed to supplement the military with their own protections. The war was on our soil (we forget this, because wars are never on our soil anymore). But when the war in on your soil you have a much higher need for personal protection because the enemy (the actual enemy, not the figurative 21st century enemy) could very well appear at your home with guns blazing. 

Today, no soldiers are going to show up at your home guns blazing. Today we need to protect ourselves from modern threats like robbers and psychopathic murderers. While I will agree that there is a need to protect yourself and your family from threats of the outside world, that threat no longer requires a militia. You can get locks on your doors, alarm systems in your home, etc. 

There will never be a time when in order to protect yourself from a robber or other intruder in your life or home you will need a 100 round automatic rifle. One bullet will put the intruder out of commision if not kill him. 

That being said, the right to bear arms for the security of a free state basically ensures your right to a gun for protection. This in no way ensures your right to a gun for hunting, but hunting is relatively harmless, so fine we can include that. 

It's also important to keep guns out of the hands of the criminals and people that will use their guns for evil. This isn't in the constitution but the soldiers in the revolutionary war did not give their guns to the british soldiers, why would you want someone to have a gun that could kill you? In today's world keeping guns out of the hands of the bad people means something different than what it meant hundreds of years ago. It means things like background checks, and controlling or regulating where the guns go, who gets them, and why they have them. If you are a law abiding honest gun owner, then your right to bear arms won't actually be infringed upon at all by gun control laws. 

Here are some of the things Obama ACTUALLY wants to do: 

~Create a national database to make sure background checks are run through all the systems and no criminal falls through the cracks. 

~Close the gun show loophole so that the same strict rules have to be followed at gun shows as they do at regular stores. 

~Start a national dialogue about mental health

~Encourage congress to pass an assault rifles ban

~Ban large ammunition magazines

~Train emergency responders to have an effective and quick response to shootings in public places

~Give incentives to schools with police officers. 

I know people don't like the word "ban" inherently. But instead of just getting mad at the word Obama or ban, really look at that list. What on that list is actually a bad thing and/or will actually take away the guns of a law abiding honest gun owner who is using their guns for protection and hunting? Keep in mind that the kids who took the lives of the students at Columbine got their guns from a gun show. Adam Lanza took his mothers AR that she got legally because ARs are legal. 

Think about how many lives would be saved just by not having automatic weapons around. James Holmes would have only gotten 5 or 6 shots off before having to reload, giving people way more time to run out of the theater. Eric Harris might have just resorted to only bombs, which he was bad at making and those lives would have been saved. 

What Obama is doing is not liberal or left wing. What he is doing is protecting his country, exactly what a commander in chief should do. Now I know this had lot of logic in it, so if that bothers you then go ahead and go back to posting memes about how Obama is black and probably on crack which is why he is banning all guns and allowing the gays to create hurricanes to kill all the good people. Otherwise, use your brain and think about how much better off this country would be if people weren't walking around with assault rifles. 

How to prevent rape: flow chart edition.

Ever since Todd Akin, Rush Limbaugh and a slew of other not so intelligent conservative old men opened their mouths to define rape, rape has been a hot discussion topic. You might think this is a bad thing, but actually it's a good thing. This means that maybe people will stop assuming they have a right to another persons body. Maybe if we talk about it enough boys will grow up understanding the difference between respect and rape. 

The funny thing is, we still have, in this society, a culture of victim blaming. I see more re-posts of how women should prevent rape that I ever wished existed. Women should carry weapons or mase, they should dress like nuns and have short hair. Women shouldn't walk alone at night, they shouldn't park in parking structures, they shouldn't lead promiscuos lives. Women should refrain from things like one night stands, because it gives men the wrong impression and they might get raped. Women shouldn't go to frat parties, they shouldn't get drunk around men they don't trust. I could go on forever listing the ways women are supposed to cease enjoying their lives in order to prevent idiotic men and  immature boys from raping them. 

But why? Why do women have to be in charge of making sure they don't get raped? Shouldn't the rapist be in charge of NOT RAPING PEOPLE! I mean seriously, why are we not raising boys to be less ridiculous? 

Just recently Jenna Marbles, a youtube famous vlogger, made a video of things she doesn't understand about women "sluts edition". This video talked about a lot of things, but skirted pretty close to the edge of victim blaming. Victim blaming, meaning that women who get too drunk, make bad choices, sleep around too much, or dress "slutty" in some way deserve the assault of the man who found her black out drunk when she couldn't make decisions. 

A number of other less famous vloggers then made response videos about the slippery slope to victim blaming. This one is my favorite:

She does a really good job of articulating the problem with labeling date rape as a "bad decision". She makes the important and too often ignored point that being raped is not the result a bad decision on the part of the victim, but the result of a horrendous violating attack on the part of the rapist. Watching the video will do more justice than my description, so watch it and then continue reading. 

The thing that really killed me was the comments section of this video. Of course there were plenty of people saying how proud they were and how much they like when this vlogger had to say. But naturally there were jerks also. Jerks that made comments like "How drunk does someone have to be for it to be considered rape?" and "people shouldn't intervene if they think they see someone being taken advantage of."  Is that a joke? I can only assume those comments came from the same sort of jerks that edited this wonderful point made my this women into this totally rape-y version. 

That is the original photo. This wonderful and amazing women took this photo of herself to make the point that no matter how a woman is dressed, she isn't there for you to have sex with. Some completely horrible people edited to this:

Seriously? They "fixed" it by erasing the words "still not" so that she is now asking for it. This is how much power people think they have over other people's bodies. A quick photoshop job and now they can have sex with that woman. These are the people you think don't really exist. These are the people that you get sick of "feminists" hating. This is pretty symbolic of the way women are treated by rapist types. And this is NOT ok.  Ok, so whatever these are just stupid uneducated horrible men. Fine, then I'm going to educate everyone. I made this handy dandy flow chart to help you understand when it is ok to have sex with someone. I know it is small, I made it in a word proccesor and kind of quick but I tried to make it large enough to see. If your computer has a zoom feature use that. 

Should I have sex with this person I think is cute?

So you see, most roads lead to no. This doesn't imply that women can't have sex all the time all day, but they have to say yes all the time all day. My point is that we need to get away from "no means no". That's insane. Instead, wait for a yes. It also answers the question that never needed to be asked about how drunk someone has to be for it to be rape. Doesn't matter, they can have had 1 beer or 20 shots. If they are too drunk, tired, unconscious, distracted, or whatever, to definitively say yes, then you can't have sex with them. 

Let's think about it another way. You know how in football if the ruling on the field is not a touchdown, the only way to overturn it is with IRREFUTABLE video evidence? Meaning it was NOT a touchdown unless it can be irrefutably proven to have broken the plane. Think about sex like that, unless there is NO QUESTION in your mind at all, unless there is IRREFUTABLE evidence that the person said yes they want to have sex with you then you should NOT have sex with them. 

Still not understanding? Ok, well how about this: if someone was about to do what you are about to do to your sister, mother, daughter, or best friend would you beat the crap out of them? If the answer is yes, then you probably shouldn't. (disclaimer: this doesn't include that fact that dads would probably like to beat up the people taking their daughters on dates and holding their hand). 

Until we change this culture around rape, and until we make preventing rape the job of the rapist and not the victim, we are going to make women feel like bad things that happen to them are their fault. If women sleep around as much as men that DOES NOT mean they deserve to get raped. Even if you think their life is terrible, they do not deserve to get raped. Even if you think they are unworthy of respect, they do not deserve to get raped. When Daniel Tosh said that the audience member who heckled him deserved "to be gang raped by five guys" what he was doing was perpetuating the idea that bad women deserve bad things. 

I will leave you with this: even if a woman makes the worst decisions ever, every single day of her life and dresses like a prostitute and walks along the streets at 2am without any weapons...she still DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE RAPED. Teach this to your children, that the rapist is the only one responsible for preventing rape. 

Where was God? Oh, he was in Newtown, CT. Where were you?

To be completely honest with you, I've been avoiding the news as much as possibly lately. It just too much, it's too sad to think of those kids and those teachers. But, I don't live under a rock, I am not a starfish. And I have Facebook. There are a million things I could say about what happened.

We NEED to stop ignoring mental health issues. We don't need to start talking about the idea of maybe thinking about creating a committee for mental health issues. We need to just stop pretending like they don't exist. We need to focus on helping people more, and supporting people more. But I think this is beating a dead horse and everyone has their opinion on it anyways.

I could talk about guns. But I've said my piece. I will never understand why people think assault rifles should not be banned, since the entire purpose of an Assault Rifle is to ASSAULT people. But whatever, I am out of words to say on the guns issue.

No, my issue is this prayers in schools thing. First, why use such a horrible event to push such a ridiculous agenda? Second, prayer IS allowed in school, just not prayer of one religion administrated by to teachers. And third, the last time I check, God is there whether or not you are praying.

Here is how God works. (or at least the God I was taught to believe in). Also, might I add, this is how many of the people claiming this happened because prayer isn't allowed in schools say that God works also. God loves everyone. God loves people that believe, and people that don't believe. God protects. God does not only protect people that believe. God does not love conditionally, based upon whether or not you are praying. God does not even stop loving if you are sinning (so even if prayers SHOULD be allowed to be forced by teachers, thus not allowing it is a sin, God still loves the people not allowing it). God doesn't disappear when you stop praying and reappear when you start praying again. God does not force anybody to believe in Him, he simply waits patiently. God does not hate (I think the Westboro Baptist Church missed this memo). God doesn't stop loving people, it's just not a thing.

So to say that if there had been more prayer, and more God, and more christianity in that school this wouldn't have happened is just one big insult to the families, the lives lost, christians, God, and really, America. Look instead at all the moments that God (and/or the higher power/protector/Allah/Yahweh/etc) WAS there. Look at how many loves WEREN'T lost. Look at what those teachers did to save the lives of their students, seriously, that doesn't show you that God was there? That a 20-something from an evidently selfish generation could care so deeply for children who weren't hers that she would only know for a year, that she would take a bullet for them, if all you can see from that is that there isn't enough God is the world, you need new glasses.

To take away from the heroic acts of the people in Connecticut that God wasn't there, would be like taking away from Jesus dying on the cross that God wasn't there. Oh, don't get offended, it's true. I mean, what a terrible event to have this innocent man who was only trying to bring good to the world, who was the King of the Jews be crucified, where was God? Did this happen because Jesus and his disciples didn't pray enough? No, of course not that is a dumb thing to say.

Neither Jesus, nor God would ever force themselves upon someone. So why should you force them upon someone? Why should you speak for God and say he wasn't there, when clearly he was, because he always is. I can't explain why those tiny lives were lost, and I don't wish to because it's so horrible that they were. But I'm pretty sure God doesn't just sit back and watch things like that happen. At least not the one that I was taught to believe in.

guns

There is not really an effective way to explain the number of thoughts that went through my mind on Friday afternoon. I was standing in the courthouse, watching the trial of the murder of my aunt wear down on my family, listening to people talk about the new law allowing guns to be taken into new places especially schools (this was the place we all were the most concerned about). None of us had our cell phones because they aren't allowed in the courthouse, there are no TVs in the courthouse. There is no way to know what is happening in the outside world. Maybe this was for the best, did we really need to see all that news flashing on the screens while the jury was deliberating?

As we head to leave because the jury hadn't made a decision the deputy stops us and informs us of the horrible events of Friday afternoon. I pretty much stopped listening after "first grade classroom."

Like I said, there is no effective way to possibly explain the thoughts that went through my head in the moment. The first was that my very best friend in the first grade teacher, so I should make sure she's ok. But she lives in Colorado, so that was a fleeting thought. The second was those poor poor children. Those poor parents. That teacher. And my very next thought was, guns ruin everything.

Now, I realize that maybe in your lifetime you have enjoyed killing a Bambi or two. And when I say that my dad points out that I eat Betsy the cow, but hey, if you're killing in order to feed society go for it, and besides, this isn't a debate about hunting and vegetarianism. But in my lifetime, the only things guns have done is destroy lives.

Guns are the reason that I grew up, from the day before (June 18th, 1989) I was 20 months old, in a state of tragedy. Guns are the reason that my brothers 4th birthday party probably sucked and was basically just happening (so I've been told, I don't remember). Guns are the reason that my mom lost one of her sisters, and that 3 of my cousins grew up without a mom.

Guns are the reason all those kids died in Columbine. And the reason all those people died in Virginia Tech. Guns are the reason a teenage boy died in an Ann Arbor high school, he was playing with his dad's gun when his friend accidentally pulled the trigger. Guns are the reason for the lives lost in Aurora. And the lives lost in NYC, Detroit, Chicago, LA and every other urban city every single day.

The prosectur in my aunt's trial used one of my least favorite phrases to make a really good point. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Gross. I hate that. But somebody has to have the gun. Somebody has to have the gun to use to to kill somebody on accident, on purpose, planned or unplanned. If you don't have a gun, you can't shoot somebody.

If now is not the time to talk about gun control. If now is not the time to talk about how to save those lives. If now is not the time to make sure those kids did not die in vain, then when is the time?

People don't want to talk about it because it sucks to talk about death. And they know that it will require them giving up some of their guns. If it will require admitting that the second amendment doesn't actually mean you just get to have AK-47's laying around the house.

The holiday debacle

Every single year since the dawn of time (aka since I was old enough to notice), as soon as halloween passes we are automatically engaged in the American Holiday Season. This includes really great things like shoving your whole extended family in one room over a meal and seeing what happens, and really frustrating things like the whole debate over what we should say to each other during this season. (this ends as soon as Dec 31st gets here, and then its happy new year, and nobody cares anymore.

Here is the solution to the debate over the holidays. But first, a story:

I work in retail. (this story likely is true for all service industry workers). I interact with hundreds of people every day, hundreds of different people with unique lives and stories and families. I usually get one of two versions of the "farewell greeting": "merry christmas" or "happy holidays" or some variation thereof. I don't often get told "happy hanukah" or "happy kwanza" or "happy solstice".

I respond with "you too."  Let's say for example that I didn't celebrate christmas, but none of the less I am wished a merry christmas, it can be assumed the person wishing me a merry christmas celebrates christmas, so by saying "you too" I am wishing them a merry christmas. In fact, no matter what they say to me, I am wishing them an enjoyable whatever holiday they celebrate. Sure, I hope Jewish people have a good day on Dec 25th, it would be weird to wish for someone to have a bad day, but it's equally weird to wish someone a merry holiday they don't celebrate.

There is no war on Christmas. There is a push to be more inclusive, if you don't like that then I guess you have a bigger problem than this blog can solve. Most stores do not have generic holiday seasons, nor do they have CHRISTmas seasons. Most stores have Americanized consumeristic holiday seasons marked with green trees and fat men in red suits. No, it's not weird for your local secular store to not carry a nativity scene. In fact, I wouldn't want or trust wal-mart or target to respectfully represent the religious christmas. I would much rather get that from a store that understands the nativity scene. The job of a store, like it or not, is to make money. Not to celebrate one religious holiday.

There is also not a war on other non-christian religions. (um, that sentence reminds me of the Gaza/Israel thing, so when I say no war, I mean in the way we as Americans trivialize the word "war"). Sure people like Bill O'Reilly say ridiculous things, but he is one guy. And one guy does not make a war. There is less product for those holidays around, because they are less common and less commercialized. Again, a stores job is to make money, and they make WAY more money on christmas than hanukkah.  I think people who are interested in celebrating CHRISTmas should wish their holiday was less prevalent in stores, it might have more meaning.

We are all fighting to celebrate the holiday season our own way, and we are letting the stores dictate what that means. If your best friend celebrated a different holiday than you, what would you say to them? You would probably tell them Happy Hanukkah, and they would say to you Merry Christmas. Since we don't know personally every person we meet, it makes sense to say "happy holiday(s)" because that implies that we hope for them to enjoy whichever winter celebration they have.

Also, if someone says to you the wrong holiday, who cares? Isn't it nice that they care enough to wish you a happy anything? There is no need at all to correct them. "well, I know you said to enjoy my holiday, but I celebrate christmas so you can say merry christmas," that's rude. It's also annoying. And it makes you look like a jerk. And it makes christmas feel like a holiday which is shoved down everyone's throats, not like the enjoyable thing that it is.

The moral of the story: who cares? This should not be a debate. Common courtesy should explain how to act. Just be glad people are wishing you a happy anything and that you have people in your life to celebrate your holiday with. Stop posting pictures on Facebook of how I should know what holiday to wish someone, and also of people telling me it's american to say merry christmas. It's the holidays, not the month of fighting. The election is over, just say have a good day if it's that serious.