Once again the nativity season brings attacks by those offended by ubiquitous displays of Christmas.  This Christmas, I’m drawn to the similar ways some Christians and Republicans create opposition to their beliefs and, like the innkeepers of Bethlehem, provide no shelter for travelers.

Every year brings new incidents of holiday political correctness, from removal of nativity scenes from public places to banning of Christmas references and displays in public schools.  These events do not bother me, and I do not see them as infringements on my Christian beliefs.  I do not need to see Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus welcoming shepherds and magi on the town square to remind me of Christmas and of the reason for the season.  I do not rely on public schools to educate my children on the significance of Christmas or their religion.

As a Christian, I carry Christ in my heart every day (although I do not honor or adore Him as much as I should), and I tried to teach my children about our religion through my daily thoughts, words, and deeds.  This is why I do not have strong feelings either way regarding prayers before public meetings or moments of silence in school. 

Prayers in public settings, in my opinion, are religious displays that underscore one of the central questions of prayer, that is, whose petition does God grant?  When the mayor prays at the start of a city council meeting for God’s guidance and grace, so, too, are the opposing sides in the upcoming debates.  Who does God favor when both football teams and their respective fans pray that their guys beat the bejeezus out of the other guys?

Prayer is a personal thing to me, which is probably why I have problems with in-your-face declarations of any Christian tradition.  It’s why I understand non-Christians, particularly atheists, who seem to lose all reason during Christmas.  Stores now put out Christmas displays before Halloween, which makes it kind of creepy to see costumes of ghouls and politicians next to Santa and the Christ Child.  News outlets devote much time during the days leading up to Thanksgiving to explain the economic importance of Christmas (or holiday) shopping, thereby underscoring the non-Christian argument that Christmas is merely a pagan observance forced upon society.

Christmas also exemplifies the vast differences in the ways Christians observe the holiday and practice their religion.  My conservative, Eastern Orthodox tradition calls for fasting during the 40 days before Christmas.  Other Christians have parties with drinks, meats, and merriment.  And that’s OK, or should be, because I believe each of us practices our faith and traditions differently, not better.

Orthodox tradition sees Mary as a teenager betrothed to the older Joseph, a widower with children.  Others see the Holy Family as a couple of starry-eyed teenagers heading to Bethlehem in compliance of Caesar’s law and the fulfillment of God’s plan.  The end result is the same.

Orthodoxy is not demonstrative and showy in its practices or politics.  One does not find mega churches, televangelists, or political action committees that try to influence public policy with their versions of faith-based politics that alienate other Christians as well as non-believers.

Christianity is a big tent that accepts many traditions.  Some Christians, however, spend considerable time and resources promoting their interpretations of Jesus and Salvation, which many times conflict with other Christians.  Orthodoxy, in a simple form, says there may be many paths to God, but we must concern ourselves with the single path laid out by a tradition that remains unaltered and unbroken since revealed by Jesus through the Apostles.  Other Christian traditions, however, believe it’s their way or no way. 

That thought brings us to the Republican Party of today, which many believe has been hijacked by a narrow brand of conservatives and by fundamentalist Christian beliefs.  The quiet, but growing discourse says this strident political/religious stance not only alienates people with moderate conservative political views, but also people of other faiths, including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Wiccan.  And let’s not leave out agnostics and atheists.  Today’s Republican Party will falter and die unless it removes the walls erected by fundamentalist Christians and dismantles the political barriers that create impassable regional divides.  Doing so will allow welcoming and inclusive spaces within its big tent for diverse personal convictions.

A gun-control advocate should not be ostracized from the party that advocates reduced government control.  An abortion-rights proponent should not feel unwanted in the party that believes in lower taxes.  A supporter of programs that assist children and families in need should not be cast out by those who seek stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

Christmas provides a fundamental lesson for Christians, that Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.  He who created all things was born in a shelter alongside the road because all the good rooms were taken.  What would you do if you were an innkeeper and knew what we know today? 

If today’s Republican Party continues catering to the far-right of center and to its fringe elements, it is highly probable its epitaph will read: It provided no crib for a bed.

The hot and miserable August weather has moved indoors in cities and towns across our land. Moved indoors and taken the form of recriminating rhetoric as neighbors square off in shout fests billed as informational town hall meetings about health care.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) enjoys using the term “evil mongers’ to describe American citizens expressing their anxieties and frustrations, many times with verbal vigor and abuse, over healthcare proposals they fear will adversely affect their lives and the lives of their children and of their parents.

Reid, along with many supporters of the various healthcare bills floating around Capitol Hill, says Republican special interest groups have organized the protests. That is the case to some degree. But to say individual Americans who cut across generational, social, and economic lines cannot think for themselves and cannot decide on their own to attend these meetings is simply absurd and borders on the disingenuous.

These town hall demonstrators, many of them children of the Summer of Love, have taken a page out of the liberal playbook to create our current Summer of Dissonance. Obstructive behavior to silence opposing views is not uncommon, particularly on college campuses, and the targets are usually conservative speakers.

In October 2006, someone pulled a fire alarm at Georgetown University to stop a speech by Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox. A few weeks later, Columbia University students stormed a stage where Jim Gilchrist, the other Minuteman co-founder, was speaking.

In October 2007, members of Amnesty International, Veterans for Peace, and Students for Justice in Palestine, among others, disrupted a lecture by David Horowitz at Emory University, a common occurrence for Horowitz.

In April 2008, dozens of lesbians at Smith College climbed through windows and stormed the podium to stop a speech by Ryan Sorba, author of The Born Gay Hoax.

And last April, University of North Carolina police arrested six people who disrupted a speech by Virgil Goode, a former congressman from Virginia, who was speaking against affirmative action and illegal immigration. A week earlier, UNC police used pepper spray on students who disrupted a speech by Tom Tancredo, a former congressman from Colorado, who was talking about his opposition to in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants.

Back when I handled communications for a university president, I crafted the school’s position regarding controversial speech on campus. The result was a statement that said universities, by their very nature, are forums for the free expression, discussion, and debate of all views, including those that may be unpopular or even repugnant to some members of the university community or to the public. I went on to point out that we should encourage these exchanges as long as they remain within the boundaries of the law, which is an idea essential to a thriving and open democracy and, if followed, would temper today’s tempestuous town hall meetings.

I have come to believe over the years that some people on the left of the political spectrum interpret the First Amendment to mean this: “You can say what you like as long as I like what you say.” This is why they meet challenges to their political agenda with hateful words and ham-handed techniques. These attempts to stifle questions and concerns end up frustrating citizens not used to civil disobedience and unruly demonstrations.

They learn fast, however, these so-called special-interest puppets and evil mongers. They learn fast and respond to attempted censorship with shouts and jeers, chants and slogans. They quickly become that which they do not like and do not respect.

And this why we need Atticus Finch, the quiet and reasoning father in Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird. We need to sit on the porch and listen to Atticus explain how we confuse issues and drown discourse with raised voices and angry fists.

He would begin by telling us to hold our heads high and keep our fists down. “No matter what anyone says to you, don't let 'em get your goat,” he would say, adding, “Try fighting with your head for a change.”

Atticus would then raise his chin and look out over those assembled around his porch, the very ones who had been hurling invectives at each other and getting no closer to resolving the issues. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view,” he would say, “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Finally, he would place his hands on his knees, slowly stand, then look down upon the upturned faces. He would watch the thoughtful in the crowd nod their heads and walk away into the night. Then he would imperceptibly shake his head as he looked at the remaining angry faces, and, in a quiet voice, almost as if speaking to himself, he would say, “I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time.”

Although people around the country are talking about it, no one seems to be saying anything.  The subject is the degradation of the presidential election process.  In this instance, we may define degradation as both the tarnishing and the humiliation of the grand tradition that is unique among the world’s democracies. 

Presidential campaigns have never been confused with genteel afternoon teas.  Political campaigns, by their nature, are nasty and unavoidable beasts.  But this year, more than any other, the battles among candidates, Democrats and Republicans, call to mind the bloody gladiatorial combats and savage-beasts fights staged in Rome’s Coliseum for the entertainment of the emperor and the citizenry.  The victor was the last man or beast standing.

Today, presidential primary campaigns play out on the television screen, the twenty-first century version of the Coliseum.  One does not need to stretch the imagination to draw a comparison between these contests and some weird hybrid of American Idol and Last Man Standing, which could carry the title of “The Last American Idol Standing.”

Each week, we parade the contestants in front of the nation’s citizens and require the combatants to draw political blood from their opponents.  Most participants survive to fight the next round.  In the meantime, a small segment of the nation decides which candidate provided the best entertainment and inflicted the greatest damage.  If the voters of a particular early-primary state cannot make up their minds, well-coifed and smooth-talking media stars tell them which candidate delivered the most damaging blows and which candidates cannot answer the bell.

And this is the model of democracy we encourage citizens of other nations to embrace.

The answer to why we subject ourselves to this political insanity is found, in part, in state bragging rights.  When addressing the question about why New Hampshire should be the first state to hold primaries, the Manchester Union Leader responded with, “We’ve earned it.”  Indeed.
 
Another part of the answer is money (doesn’t it always come down to that?).  Estimates show this year’s Iowa caucuses generated as much as $100 million for the state, with a fourth of that spent in Des Moines, according to the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau.  For New Hampshire, the “We Earned It” state, campaign-related economic benefits could surpass $250 million.

Millions of dollars in free publicity is another factor in the race to degrade our political process.  A study of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, conducted by the Library and Archives of New Hampshire Political Tradition and the New Hampshire Department of State, found that an estimated 20 million people heard positive messages about the state from the national media.  An estimated 14 million people were exposed to stories that touted the state as a place to visit or to do business.  The overall value of this media exposure, in terms of tourism promotion and economic development, came to $264 million.

In 2000, then-senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) and then-Democrat Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), introduced the Regional Presidential Selection Act in response to what they called an arbitrary and confusing process that gives a handful of states a disproportionate influence.

In testimony before the Committee on Rules and Administration, Gorton cited a review by the Congressional Research Service that concluded that almost 80 percent of the delegates needed to claim the nomination for either party in the 2000 primaries were allocated by March 7, which prompted the media to declare the nomination process was finished.

This front-loading phenomenon on the part of nearly half of the states effectively denied the electorate in the remaining states the chance to cast meaningful votes for the candidates of their choice.  This disenfranchisement of voters was not based on race, gender, or national origin.  Front-loading states silenced these voters for the sake of tourism promotion and economic development. 

The media are willing partners in the grab for economic gains.  Nearly five million viewers watched the Jan. 21 Democratic debate on CNN, making that event the highest-rated political debate in cable TV history.

The Gorton-Lieberman bill would have created a rotating, regional system with all states in a region holding primaries or caucuses on the same date, in March, April, May, or June.  The bill died in committee, however.

And so the question now may be, “How does this affect me?”  If, for instance, you supported Rudy Giuliani or John Edwards on Jan. 29, and you lived in a state other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, or Florida, then you had to find another candidate on Jan. 30.

On Nov. 4, we all get a chance to decide between the last candidates standing.  Only, at this rate, they may not be the most-qualified candidates, just the least bloodied.

It is time for the voters to give the proverbial thumbs-down to the current primary practice and retake control of the process.  The opportunity of a citizen in one state to cast a meaningful vote for the candidate of his or her choice should not be a function of another state’s economic development strategy.