Question:
Wal-Mart faces boycott
for 'banning' Christmas
Top retailer accused of discrimination while promoting Hanukkah, Kwanzaa
Posted: November 10, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Joe Kovacs
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
A Catholic advocacy group has launched a national boycott against Wal-Mart, claiming the world's No. 1 retailer has in effect banned Christmas, while promoting other seasonal holidays such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
But Wal-Mart tells WorldNetDaily it has absolutely not banned Christmas, but is just trying to serve all our customers for the holiday season.
According to the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the controversy was sparked when a woman recently complained to Wal-Mart that the store was replacing its Merry Christmas greeting with Happy Holidays.
The League says the woman received an e-mail response from a customer-service representative, reading exactly as follows:
Walmart is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this. The majority of the world still has different practices other than christmas which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism. The colors associated with christmas red and white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom. Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue speculated the writer of that e-mail was perhaps drunk, so he sent the response to Dan Fogelman in Wal-Mart's public-relations department.
Donohue received back a response from Fogelman, who wrote in part:
As a retailer, we recognize some of our customers may be shopping for Chanukah or Kwanzaa gifts during this time of year and we certainly want these customers in our stores and to feel welcome, just as we do those buying for Christmas. As an employer, we recognize the significance of the Christmas holiday among our family of associates ... and close our stores in observance, the only day during the year that we are closed.
It's nice to know that Wal-Mart is closed on a federal holiday, explains Donohue, who says he's asking the leaders of 126 religious organizations spanning seven religious communities to boycott the retail giant.
He points out, and WND confirmed, that when using the company's online search engine, if the world Hanukkah is entered, 200 items for sale are returned. The term Kwanzaa yields 77. But when Christmas is entered, the message returned says: We've brought you to our 'Holiday' page based on your search.
However, the search also brings up a secondary link on which to click, which reveals 7,970 items that match the Christmas term.
When WND entered the name Jesus, 5,668 items were displayed. And when the phrase War on Christmas was submitted, the Wal-Mart search engine produced the new book by Fox News Channel host John Gibson, subtitled How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.
Wal-Mart is practicing discrimination, Donohue maintains.
But has Wal-Mart banned Christmas in any fashion?
No. Absolutely not, company spokeswoman Yolanda Stewart said, telling WorldNetDaily that Wal-Mart became aware of the boycott late yesterday. We already serve a diverse customer base, and we're just trying to help them to celebrate their individual needs and wants.
A company news release dated Nov. 1 promoting shopping at this time of year uses the words holiday or holidays 18 times, without a single mention of Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.
One sentence had the H-word four times:
Based on the theme Home for the Holidays, Wal-Mart's holiday campaign celebrates the holiday style of some of Wal-Mart customers' favorite celebrities, including Garth Brooks, Destiny's Child, Martina McBride, Jesse McCartney, and Queen Latifah, each enjoying the holidays at their actual homes.
Based in Bentonville, Ark., Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer, with over $285 billion in sales, and a workforce of 1.6 million.
As WorldNetDaily has previously reported, the public celebration of Christmas is a major battleground in the U.S., dating back to colonial America when Christians in New England outlawed Christmas, saying it was based more on ancient pagan traditions than instruction from the Bible.
In his Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Battle for Christmas, historian Stephen Nissenbaum at the University of Massachusetts documents the American development of the holiday now ensconced in popular culture.
In New England, for the first two centuries of white settlement, writes Nissenbaum, most people did not celebrate Christmas. In fact, the holiday was systematically suppressed by Puritans during the colonial period and largely ignored by their descendants. It was actually illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681 (the fine was five shillings). Only in the middle of the nineteenth century did Christmas gain legal recognition as an official public holiday in New England.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-...RTICLE_ID=47330
Answer:
just because they are promoting other holiday's doesn't mean they are 'banning' christmas. This article title is ridiculous, and so far I think the people are too that think that walmart is getting rid of christmas just by also having kwanza and chankukah
Answer:
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif) i swear people can be so stupid sometimes I think its good that walmart is doing that. I Most places don't even say merry christamas anymore they say happy holidays.
Answer:
I hate Wal-Mart, and I hate stupid, ignorant, close-minded Christians like the ones in the article. They deserve each other.
I'll sit back and watch the show.
Pass the popcorn please.
btw, Jesus is more likely to be born in the Spring than in the Winter.
Answer:
why the hell would they ban christmas
*proceeds to read article*
Answer:
^ lol. You're signature. xD
Anyway those people are really stupid...
Answer:
*rolls eyes* Idiots...
Answer:
oh wow...they must be running low on complaints...so they gotta run this one by walmart.....they need to really smarten up!!!! FOOLS!
Answer:
I hate Wal-Mart, and I hate stupid, ignorant, close-minded Christians like the ones in the article. They deserve each other.
I'll sit back and watch the show.
Pass the popcorn please.
btw, Jesus is more likely to be born in the Spring than in the Winter.
no actually he was more likely to be born in late august / early september
again, do your research..
Answer:
no actually he was more likely to be born in late august / early september
again, do your research..
It's funny how you aggressively denies his statement considering that it is still a great debatable topic among the many christian theologists. I suggest YOU do the research again. although late august/ early september isn't a bad suggestion either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus
Answer:
Maikeru.
As you requested, I did a quick research.
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=656
Now it logically follows that if Jesus Christ lived (need it be said?), he must have been born. The Gospels tell us that his birth was shortly before Herod the Great died. Herod's death can be fixed with certainty.
Josephus records an eclipse of the moon just before Herod passed on. This occurred on March 12th or 13th in 4 B.C. Josephus also tells us that Herod expired just before Passover. This feast took place on April 11th, in the same year, 4 B.C. From other details supplied by Josephus, we can pinpoint Herod the Great's demise as occurring between March 29th and April 4th in 4 B.C.
Don't know how many days the term shortly before implies though...but I'm guessing just a few days or weeks.
I also found Wikipedia, but MQN beat me to it so I won't post that one again.
Note: by no means what I say or the information I posted is absolute, so don't take it as that.
