In her latest Nation column, Katha Pollitt implores her readers to get together this holiday season and help excise religion from…well, from Christ-mas, for starters. Some compelling reasons:

Just think of the damage religious mania (combined, as it tends to be, with nationalism and patriarchy) has wrought around the globe this year, the first of the new millennium–the World Trade Center attack, the Taliban, suicide bombers in Israel versus yet more settlements on the West Bank. And that’s not even mentioning our own home-grown fanatics, like the recently apprehended fugitive Clayton Lee Waagner, who threatened to murder forty-two abortion clinic workers and who is the main suspect in some 550 anthrax-hoax letters to clinics, or the mainstreaming of conservative religious views, as in the explosion of abstinence-only sex education and theologically motivated restrictions on stem-cell research.

Bah, humbug, Katha! — dishing out your patented equivalencies like so much Christmas pudding…

Follow the bouncing ball, won’t you? In Katha’s world, the World Trade Center attack = the Taliban, the Taliban = Hamas and Hezbollah, Hamas and Hezbollah = Israeli reprisals, Israeli reprisals = Clayton Lee Waagner’s domestic threats and hoaxes, Clayton Lee Waagner’s shenanigans = school prayer, chaste teens, and further discussion about the ethical implications involved in stem-cell research. Simple as that. So, ready to join the Pollitt-buro? Here’s how!

If you don’t already belong to the the […] Freedom From Religion Foundation (PO Box 750, Madison, WI 53701; http://www.ffrf.org), now’s the moment [Now’s the moment? Now?] to sign up: The foundation is fearless, tireless and clever in supporting separation of church and state and opposing the increasingly bold power moves of the godly

And the newsletter makes a great stocking stuffer!

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