Christian Right Group: Atheists Near Top of Grinch-o-Meter

The Christian Right group Culture and Media Institute has put out their list of the 2008 Worst Grinches (PDF).

The winner: Playboy for putting out an issue in its Mexican edition with a seductive cover girl posed as the Virgin Mary:

Yep. That one ruined Christmas for all Christians, I know.

Runner up? The Freedom From Religion Foundation for their “offensive” signs in state Capitol buildings.

What did they score?

Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation said during an appearance on the Dec. 4 “Fox & Friends” that the nativity scene represents “hate speech” and “a direct attack on good human values.”

…

Allowing disrespectful signs to be placed near Christian displays and labeling the nativity scene “hate speech” are direct attacks against Christmas.

Calling the Nativity Scene “hate speech”: 10 Grinches.

[Washington Governor Christine] Gregoire hiding behind the First Amendment to allow attacks on Christmas: 9 Grinches.

And in third? The American Humanist Association for their bus ads:

AHA’s Editorial Director Fred Edwords defended the $40,000 ad campaign, telling the Associated Press, “Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion.”

Edwords used the generic term “holidays” in his defense. But by quoting a line from “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” the AHA is clearly targeting Christmas.

Using a beloved Christmas song in an ad attacking Christmas: 10 Grinches

That’s all it takes? Not much. They didn’t even mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster Nativity Scene…

I wonder how atheists will take the Gold next year.

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Troublesh00ter

Diego

I don’t think catholics should be looking at playboy magazines.
miller

If I recall, the Grinch stole everyone’s presents and nearly pushed them off a cliff. How do any of these measure up? “OMG, people we don’t like also enjoy Christmas tunes, and some of them even seem to celebrate Christmas! We must take that away from them!”
RealismFTW

I’d be willing to get friendly with that mother-of-a-deity…. in the name of increasing coexistence between atheists and theists, of course 😉
Emily

I think it is ridiculous that they can spread their hate of anything not religious, but we can’t have a few measly signs. We are simply invoking our freedom of speech. We do not steal their nativity scenes.

I had an interesting Spanish class this week, all we did was color and sing Christmas songs. I didn’t learn one thing,although I did get to color Jesus in the nativity scene green. Seeing my Spanish teachers face when she saw it made me giggle.
hoverFrog

I think it was particularly telling that the PDF has a link to the article on Playboy with the full cover…What? I only read it for the article.

Isn’t the Grinch transformed by the inevitability of Christmas and inflicted with cardiac hypertrophy at the end of the story? Cardiac hypertrophy can occur those suffering from severe stress, a common complaint at this time of the year.
PrimeNumbers

Sure the Christians are the ultimate Grinch, in that they are the ones who not only stole Christmas (from the pagans) but took away it’s name, and re-named it after them…
Diego

By the way, you can download the swhole set of pictures of that “Virgin Mary” in this link: http://depositfiles.com/ru/files/yrwmbpafi

I live in SoCal and wish more mexican women were like her. Both, beautiful and sacrilegeous.
Rest

The Culture and Media Institute should be ashamed of themselves for causing me to stumble by looking at that Playboy cover. I would never have known about it if it wasn’t for them. How many more have you caused to fall into sin? Bastards.

“It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.” – Rom 14:21
Autumnal Harvest

Gregoire hiding behind the First Amendment to allow attacks on Christmas. . .

I’m always amazed when people can’t differentiate between “I endorse this message,” and “I don’t like this message, but I’m legally obliged to allow you to say it.” Although I guess it’s not that amazing, when I look at Grinch #6:

6. Some Grinches were simply clueless. Viewers who tuned into NBC’s Christmas at Rockefeller Center saw pop star Britney (“Cindy-Lou Who”) Spears wish everyone a “happy holidays” in her introduction – and this after she noted “Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and before she reminded everyone, “it’s Christmas at Rockefeller Center.” Disney pop princess Miley Cyrus also wished the audience “happy holidays” after singing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

Wishing audiences “Happy Holidays” during a Christmas event: 5 Grinches.

Sweet Jesus, these “There’s a War on Christmas” people are lunatics. It’s not enough to publicly celebrate Christmas, say that you like Christmas, and sing Christmas songs. You also have to make sure that you never, ever, ever, say “happy holidays,” but instead call it “Christmas” every single f-ing time. Because otherwise, the holidays—excuse me, Christmas—will be completely ruined. I really don’t understand how people can believe things like this, look at what they’ve written, and not realize how completely insane they are.
Shane

The idiotic thing about being angry about saying “happy holidays” is that the etymology of “holiday” is “holy” + “day”. It literally means “happy holy days”. Over time the usage has just expanded to include any type of leave of absence.

They’re getting their panties in a twist over of the specificity of the noun used? Ridiculous.
Richard Wade

More whining by a few self-important Christians who are spoiled by centuries of having a free pass, a protected status immune from dissension, dispute or disagreement. They characterize all that as “dissing.” Get used to the competition guys, you’re in the free marketplace of ideas now. We get to have our booth too.

By the way, Christians do not own December.
siamang

They seem like the real grinches to me. I’m spending my holiday loving my family and friends. They’re spending it listing all the folks who peeve them off
Chris Bradley

See, what I got when reading that is . . . is it in the Christmas spirit to go around, during the Christmas season, and being judgmental jerks about things? Seriously. In the Christmas tradition of peace and love, they’re going around handing out “grinches”.

Ah, the sweet smell of hypocrisy. They’re ALLOWED to be judgmental jerks during the season, but it’s BAD if other people do things they don’t like.
Eliza

Diego wrote:

I don’t think catholics should be looking at playboy magazines.

Actually, it’s totally fine for them to “read” Playboy. They just have to tell the priest all about it the following Sunday in confession.
mkb

Why is Santa Claus is coming to town a Christian song? It seems to me that the song is secular. The figure of Santa Claus is a mix of Christian and Nordic myths. The song’s first popularizer was Eddie Cantor, who was Jewish.
Indigo

I wonder if they’d “grinch” somebody for saying “Merry Christmas and happy New Year”. Or if you said “happy Hanukkah” to someone you knew was Jewish. Or if you mentioned, just as a point of interest, that the solstice is tomorrow.
I am now so tempted to send them a Happy Yule card.
OrneryPest

Good gracious! It takes a seriously religion-spastic crybaby to get upset over a great-looking woman, even if she’s dressed a bit skimpy and there’s a stained-glass window in the background.
PrimeNumbers

And Happy Winter Solstice to you all, everywhere.
Eliza

Hey, hey, hey. Let’s not be hemispherocentric.

Here’s a big “Happy Summer Solstice” to our brethren south of the equator.
Autumnal Harvest

Ha, ha, PrimeNumbers and Eliza. You think you’re being funny, but when Santa Claus hears that you’re not saying “Merry Christmas,” he’s going to put you on his naughty list. Then, when judgment day comes (December 25, 2008), you’ll be thrown into a pit of burning sulfur for all eternity.

Wait, maybe I’m mixing up my mythologies. . .
Eliza

No, you’re pretty close, Autumnal Harvest…to the Xmas story from Futurama, that is.

But I am starting to see the wisdom of the Grinch List. If god exists, he/she/it would most certainly not want us to admire the human body, or express our varied opinions in the public square, or acknowledge a solar system event like the solstice. It’s clear that using our eyes & brains would be an affront to such a god, but using switching into More-Judgmental-Than-Thou mode would please him greatly.