Once upon a time, political correctness meant being tactful to certain groups. It got a little ridiculous after a while, but, having been blind since birth (notice the deliberate absence of the term “visually challenged”) I found it kind of amusing. I don’t consider myself “visually challenged” because I’m about as blind as a bat. There’s just no challenge involved. My life presents other challenges, but seeing just isn’t included in there. Lately, political correctness has ceased to be amusing and has become offensive to some groups. Let’s take the term “happy holidays.” Jews and Christians have co-existed peacefully for years without the term Christmas offending anyone. In fact, in some respects, Jewish children I knew growing up had the best of both worlds. They celebrated Hanukkah at home and Christmas parties at school. People will say “What about the Muslims, Hindus, or other religions who don’t celebrate Christmas?” If we truly want not to offend such religious sects, then let’s just stop celebrating holidays altogether. Let’s keep schools open throughout the season, let’s have no colorful lights to look at (you might offend those visually challenged people who can’t see them) let’s not have any holiday work parties, and, above all, let’s not have any kind of Christmas (I mean… holiday) shopping in stores. That would be a true test to our commitment to keeping everyone from being offended. This year, employees of Sears, Cosco, Target, K Mart, and Kohl's are directed to say “Happy holidays,” rather than “merry Christmas.” Wal-mart was originally going to be in on the political correctness, but decided to change their policy and say “Merry Christmas.” Considering they are one of the major stores to shop for children, I’d say that was a smart business move on their part. If everyone who still called this season Christmas decided to boycott the rest of these stores, it would be interesting to see if their commitment to political correctness held up next year. “Most people encounter Christmas at the mall,” says John Gibson, author of the book “War on Christmas”. “And there's certainly no diminution of Christmas. It starts earlier and earlier every year and there's a great commercial interest in moving goods in the Christmas season.” Can you imagine a Christmas without Santa Claus in the mall? Some Christians feel it is wrong to tell children there is a Santa Claus. That doesn’t stop the malls from having Santa’s, nor does it stop the hordes of children from crowding around him for a picture. It happens to be how some people like to have fun during the Christmas season. “Nobody gets told, "You can't have a Santa because the Constitution prohibits it."” Says Gibson. “It’s just not true.” All religions (including Christians) should be respected in their right to celebrate holidays. Just as many non-Christians enjoy this holiday for different reasons. What do they call it? Should we stop calling thanksgiving thanksgiving because some people aren’t really thankful? After all, we wouldn’t want to offend the ungrateful in any way, would we? Political correctness; it really can go too far. So relax about it and, above all, have a merry Christmas.

(Article Written by Nicole Woodruff; page designed by Quipster)

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