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Rude Holiday Greetings and A Raunchy New Year -- 12/12/2003
Rude Holiday Greetings and A Raunchy New Year
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
December 12, 2003
(CNSNews.com) - A Catholic civil rights group has rated this year's run of electronic holiday greeting cards - and found that many of them show a bias against Christmas.
The Catholic League said there are some "real problems" with holiday e-cards, especially those produced by American Greetings and Yahoo! Greetings, while the ones by Hallmark are the most "equitable" in their treatment of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.
American Greetings, for example, has what the Catholic League called "a slew of tasteless Christmas cards," but it does not offer any tasteless Hanukkah or Kwanzaa Cards.
Catholic League President William Donohue noted that American Greetings offers "rude" and "risqué" categories of Christmas e-cards -- including one featuring a woman stripping suggestively and displaying S&M gear. "Ever make an angel in the snow?" the animation says.
In the "rude" category, one e-card lists all the annoying aspects of the holiday season, then comments, "It's Christmas. Hope yours doesn't suck."
In comparison, notes the Catholic League, neither Hanukkah nor Kwanzaa e-cards merit a rude or risqué section from American Greetings. "That's reserved only for Christmas," Donohue said in a press release.
Likewise, the Catholic League said, Hanukkah -- a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar -- commands the utmost respect from Yahoo! Greetings.
Of the 33 Hanukkah cards Yahoo! Greetings offers, 26 display a Star of David or a Menorah, while of the 443 Christmas cards, only 9 are religious, according to the Catholic League.
"In other words, 79 percent of the Hanukkah cards are religious, compared to 2 percent of the Christmas cards," Donohue said.
"None of this is by accident," Donohue continued. "For a couple of decades now, there has been a systematic attempt to dilute the sacred message of Christmas while elevating the prominence of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
"This is the fruit of multiculturalism," Donohue said. "It is also the fruit of bigotry," he concluded.
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