PROTECTING CHRISTMAS FROM THE GRINCH MOB Davis
9. Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-VA)
After Fox News and Bill O’Reilly started airing concerns about the growing secularization of the Christmas season, Rep. Davis led the congressional charge in the so-called “War on Christmas.” By introducing House Resolution 579, she signaled an end to the days where Christmas-haters could stage assaults on public celebrations of Jesus’s birth. In a last-minute rush to save Christmas 2005, House leaders whisked Rep. Davis’s legislation to the floor. Davis kicked off the ensuing debate, lamenting that “it is unfortunate that a congressional resolution is even needed to do this,” and warned of “overzealous civil liberties lawyers who are making their list and checking it twice.”Joining a handful of Grinches, along with several Jewish members from New York, in vocally opposing the measure was the longest-serving member of the House, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). Dingell read a poem taking off on “The Night Before Christmas”:
After Fox News and Bill O’Reilly started airing concerns about the growing secularization of the Christmas season, Rep. Davis led the congressional charge in the so-called “War on Christmas.” By introducing House Resolution 579, she signaled an end to the days where Christmas-haters could stage assaults on public celebrations of Jesus’s birth. In a last-minute rush to save Christmas 2005, House leaders whisked Rep. Davis’s legislation to the floor. Davis kicked off the ensuing debate, lamenting that “it is unfortunate that a congressional resolution is even needed to do this,” and warned of “overzealous civil liberties lawyers who are making their list and checking it twice.”Joining a handful of Grinches, along with several Jewish members from New York, in vocally opposing the measure was the longest-serving member of the House, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). Dingell read a poem taking off on “The Night Before Christmas”:
…Wait, we need a distraction, something divisive and wily, a fabrication straight from the mouth of O’Reilly. We will pretend Christmas is under attack, hold a vote to save it, then pat ourselves on the back.
A Davis ally, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), managed to keep the Christmas spirit alive by reasonably noting that “if our Founding Fathers could be resurrected and be with us this evening, they would unanimously support this commonsense resolution.”