Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Shopping at Target: Damned if you do, damned if you don't (updated)

Actually, make that eternally damned if you do. This item is from the San Francisco Chronicle:
Evangelical Christian pastor Jerry Falwell has a message for Americans when it comes to celebrating Christmas this year: You're either with us, or you're against us.

Falwell has put the power of his 24,000-member congregation behind the "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," an effort led by the conservative legal organization Liberty Counsel. The group promises to file suit against anyone who spreads what it sees as misinformation about how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces.

The 8,000 members of the Christian Educators Association International will be the campaign's "eyes and ears" in the nation's public schools. They'll be reporting to 750 Liberty Counsel lawyers who are ready to pounce if, for example, a teacher is muzzled from leading the third-graders in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

An additional 800 attorneys from another conservative legal group, the Alliance Defense Fund, are standing by as part of a similar effort, the Christmas Project. Its slogan: "Merry Christmas. It's OK to say it."

Fanning the Yule log of discontent against what the Liberty Counsel calls "grinches" like the American Civil Liberties Union are evangelical-led organizations including the 150,000-member American Family Association. It has called for a boycott of Target stores next weekend. The chain's crime, according to the group, is a ban on the use of "Merry Christmas" in stores, an accusation the chain denies.
Gary, long-time friend of this blog, passed that item along with this comment:
I don't usually go out shopping during the weekend after Thanksgiving but I'll go buy something at Target this weekend.
But of course, the problem is that if you shop at Target this weekend to stick your thumb in Brother Falwell's eye--not that there's anything wrong with that--you're giving your business to the store that's responsible for this:
Reproductive rights advocates have set their sights on Target Stores following an incident in Missouri last month in which a pharmacist with the chain allegedly refused to fill a woman’s prescription for emergency contraception. In allowing workers to deny prescribed medications to customers based on religious beliefs, the chain joins a growing number of businesses that permit employees to trump national law, patients’ needs and doctors’ recommendations.

On September 30, a Fenton, Missouri pharmacist at a Target store declined to fill a 26-year-old woman’s prescription for emergency contraception and directed her to go to a nearby Walgreens pharmacy, according to Planned Parenthood, a reproductive-healthcare provider and pro-choice advocacy group. Though the company denies the incident occurred, it spurred an October 18 picket of the store by around 60 Planned Parenthood supporters, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
(You can read a follow-up on this story here.)

So what is a sensible activist with a shopping list to do? If our Gary shops at Target this weekend, it can be argued he gives aid and comfort to the religious extremists who want to undermine the right to reproductive choice. If he doesn't, it could be interpreted as supporting another group of religious extremists in their ongoing desire to . . . well, to make sure that merchants can exploit the birth of their savior to boost end-of-year sales figures.

I suppose he could buy something at Target this weekend and then return it on Monday.

It's kind of funny to imagine that Target must be wondering how the hell it got in the middle of this.

[Update: At The Washington Monthly, Steve Benen points out:
as a financial matter, Target shouldn't worry too much about the AFA; the group's targeted companies usually find their bottom line going up during an AFA boycott.
You don't have to be tone-deaf to irony to be on the religious right, but apparently it helps.]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Personally I wished the AFA and Falwell would get the Christ out of my pagan holiday. I wonder if any of them realize that it was the Catholic (yikes!) Pope Julius who decided that Jesus' birthday should be on Dec. 25?

"Saturnalia
In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia—a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture—was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Business and schools were closed so that everyone could join in the fun.




Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra's birthday was the most sacred day of the year.

In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday.


Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). Although some evidence suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia. Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. This is the day it is believed that the three wise men finally found Jesus in the manger.

By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals, church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced, but gave up the ability to dictate how it was celebrated. By the Middle Ages, Christianity had, for the most part, replaced pagan religion. On Christmas, believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today's Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the "lord of misrule" and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined "debt" to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens."

borrowed from The History Channel


Happy Solstice to All

Now about Thanksgiving.....