Catholic League president Bill Donohue released the following statement today on the Christmas wars:
“The secular crusaders who want to neuter Christmas say ad nauseam that the reason why we have to give more attention to holidays other than Christmas is due to the increasingly diverse composition of our nation and the world. But it is a hoax: the evidence is just the opposite.
“According to Boston University professor Stephen Prothero, America now has more Christians than any other nation in history (Christian Science Monitor, 12-23-03). ‘In terms of religious background,’ writes Hoover Institution scholar Dinesh D’Souza, ‘America is no more diverse today than it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ (The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11). Indeed, Penn State professor Philip Jenkins maintains that the U.S. is becoming more Christian (The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity). As for the world’s religious population, we are also becoming less diverse: in 1900, 50 percent of the world was either Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Hindu; in 2000, these groups constituted 64 percent, in 2025 they are projected to make up 70 percent (Shah and Duffy, “Why God is Winning,” Foreign Policy, 7-1-06).
“Hanukkah, which is a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar, is not being celebrated today more than ever before because there are more Jews: in fact, only 1 percent of America is Jewish (Newsweek, 9-5-05); in 1955, the figure was 4 percent (Will Herberg,Protestant, Catholic, Jew). Nor are we celebrating Kwanzaa more than ever before because African Americans have rallied to this African holiday: only 2 percent of Americans, or about 15 percent of blacks, celebrate the holiday (Fox News Poll, 12-9-03); and Kwanzaa has nothing to do with Africa—it was invented in 1966 by an ex-con.
“The diversity hoax is being sold as a rationale to nullify Christmas. It’s also because the multicultural industry is big business.”
