Liberty Counsel, the Religious Right hate group, has once again released its annual “Naughty and Nice” list (a.k.a. the “Friend or Foe” list), telling Christians where they ought to shop over the winter.
The “Nice” list includes companies that promote Christmas (by name) and Jesus. The “Naughty” list includes the companies that say “Happy Holidays” because they allegedly censor Christmas… or at least fail to show enough Christmas cheer.
… each year we publish a new Naughty and Nice List of retailers who either censor or celebrate Christmas. Liberty Counsel encourages you to give the gift of Christmas back to the companies who support it. If retailers choose to profit from Christmas while pretending it does not exist, we encourage you to politely explain why and then patronize their competitors.
That’s a lie. It’s not a new list at all. It’s actually the exact same PDF file as last year, typos and all, with the sole exception being the year listed on the cover. (Seriously, compare 2019 and 2020. Same file.) You have to wonder what Mat Staver even does on any given day when he’s just recycling his cries of persecution.
On their “Naughty” list this year (like last year) are retailers like Barnes and Noble (which, we should note, sells bibles), Burlington Coat Factory (“severe lack of Christmas advertising with biblical meaning”), and The Gap (“Only ‘holiday’ is used to refer to the upcoming season”).
In short, the “Naughty” stores are the ones that acknowledge the existence of Jews and Muslims and atheists in their holiday marketing campaigns and use language that’s inclusive of everybody, while the “Nice” stores are rewarded by Liberty Counsel for treating Christians as the special snowflakes they think they are.
As for Amazon, which is where a lot of people will make their holiday purchases, it’s not even on the list. But “Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland” — their capitalization, not ours — made the “Nice” list despite having a single location in Michigan.
So this is hardly some comprehensive list. It’s just recycled pettiness. And it lets the people at Liberty pretend they’ve saved Christmas. (No joke. That’s what their website says.)
(via Joe. My. God. Image via Shutterstock. Large portions of this article were published earlier because the list hasn’t changed a bit.)
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."