It’s Christmas time again. Another time for people to go out and spend spend spend. Another time for Christians the world over to reflect on the man who was sent here by God to absolve us of our sins. Of course, not everyone believes this, and that’s fine. Was Jesus actually born on December 25h? We don’t know for sure. Does it matter? Not a bit. We commemorate what his birth meant for the world, what he preached and, those of us who don’t get caught up in the commercialization of Christmas, try to think to those less fortunate. Others still celebrate Ramadan on a different day, and Rosh Hashanah on another day, but whatever our reasons, we all are commemorating something that means a great deal to us. Christmas should not, however, be a time to take insert petty politics into this time of year when many of us cast aside our differences and embrace the humanity in all of us. Most of us except Ezra Levant.
You see, Ezra’s has his panties in a twist over the fact that Michael Ignatieff’s Christmas e-card doesn’t have any christian symbolism. He points out that there is a menorah and he figures it’s okay because, hey, 1% of Canadians who are religious are Jewish. He then goes on to slam Ignatieff for not having a cross because “there’s not a single Christian symbol on the card, the religion of the majority of Canadians.” Really? I didn’t know that the majority of Canadians ascribed to Christian symbols. Is Ezra saying that the majority of Canadians just worship symbols and nothing else? This seems highly inaccurate. Perhaps Ezra should do what I did and check out stats Canada, which says that (as of 2001) of the 33 million people in Canada, 12 million ascribe to Catholicism and 8 million are protestant. Rounding out the top five are Christian Orthodox believers (479,620), other Christians (780,450) and finally Muslims (579,640).
So, some simple fact checking went a long way to disproving Levant’s psychotic rhetoric that over half of Canadians are religious. This is a fallacy that has been laid to bare. But Levant doesn’t quit there. He goes on to praise Jack Layton, at least initially, for saying the word “Christmas” and then slams him for wishing Muslims well on their holiday Muslim Eid ul Fitr. It is a three day holiday that celebrates the end of Ramadan, which is the Islamic holy month of fasting. During this holiday Muslims greet each other and wish blessings upon each other. They are also encouraged to forget their differences and animosities of the past. This is what Levant has railed against…a holiday of forgiveness and fasting.
Ezzy Wezzy goes even further, quoting Layton as saying that the Muslim holiday was “an opportunity to renew the spirit and faith in Islam. We are not celebrating the end of Ramadan, but thanking Allah for the help and strength given throughout this special month and asking for that blessing to be extended throughout the year to all of humanity.” Apparently, this is Layton attempting to indoctrinate all of us into the Islamic faith because he used the word “we” in an attempt to be inclusive. HOW DARE LAYTON REACH OUT AND TRY TO BE INCLUSIVE. SHAME ON YOU. So Levant had a hissy fit all about what? Not enough crosses on a holiday greeting card, for Layton wishing an ever increasingly marginalized segment of our population (Levant did it here himself in slamming Layton) well on a significant holiday?
How sad it must be for Ezra. I assume he is probably all alone at Christmas and feel so Grinchy about it he has to try and drag everyone else into his miserable quagmire. Most of us are smart enough, thankfully, to know that our leaders are simply reaching out to minorities in our community to help them feel included during a time of year when they are largely overlooked. Not because Jesus is being celebrated mind you. Rather, because everyone is too busy deciding whether or not they should buy a 16 gb Wifi iPad, or the 3G iPad. Religion these days has little to do with Christianity and Levant should get off his sappy “keep the Christ in Christmas” train. We are an inclusive society and it’s okay to be.
