Christmas wars begin

Thanksgiving signals the season of giving grief to cities and public schools over their Christmas observances.

Interest groups are preparing for an intense conflict starting now and running all next year, with one conservative group lining up hundreds of attorneys to work on the issue.

Communities and courts have long fielded protests against municipal creche displays and school Nativity pageants, based on strict views of church-state separation and sensitivity toward religious minorities.

In recent years, however, local disputes have extended — to carol singing, wordless instrumental music, Christmas trees and decorations, classroom visits by Santa Claus, distribution of Christmas-themed cards and gifts, "Merry Christmas!" greetings and designation of Christmas on official calendars.

This week, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., announced that its 800 cooperating attorneys have volunteered to handle without fee complaints about "improper attempts to censor the celebration of Christmas in schools and on public property."

In 2004, the second year of its "Christmas Project," affiliated attorneys sent a detailed memo on ADF's view of Christmas and constitutional law to 7,000 school districts. The 2005 effort, already under way, adds city officials.

A similar information campaign is being waged by Liberty Counsel, another Christian legal group based in Orlando, Fla., and the Christian Educators Association International, representing 8,000

public school teachers.

The topic also is the subject of a polemic by the Fox News Channel's John Gibson that is selling briskly: "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought."

Gibson, who calls himself a "nonpracticing Christian," notes that his Jewish son researched the book. He says agitation against Christmas observance comes primarily from "secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians."

The American Civil Liberties Union is targeted in another new book, "The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values" by ADF's Alan Sears and Craig Osten. The ACLU doesn't initiate all the complaints and lawsuits, the authors say, but it created the environment for widespread anti-Christmas efforts.

Even as Christmas is suppressed, these writers complain, schools sometimes encourage Ramadan, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa observances.