Dispel the Illusion

Non-Christians are seldom behind movements to have Nativity scenes pulled from public squares, Christmas carols replaced with holiday songs or "Merry Christmas" substituted with "Season's Greetings." The culprits are most often anti-Christians -- people of little or no faith who have grown tired of all the jollity and goodwill this time of year.

A vast majority of Americans still say “Merry Christmas” instead of the more politically correct greeting “Happy Holidays,” a recent poll shows. More than three out of four Americans (77 percent) say they greet with “Merry Christmas,” according to a Fox News poll taken Dec. 9-10. “I feel better when someone greets me in a store with ‘Merry Christmas’ because Christmas is about the birth of our Savior Jesus,” said Steve Krotoski, who leads Pray Daily America – a ministry that prays for the country everyday.

Nearly 30 acts of vandalism against Nativity scenes or Christmas displays and at least one case of physical assault against a Christian pastor have occurred over the last few weeks, according to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which tracks many such incidents every holiday season. “When you see all these examples” of vandalism and assault, “it is shocking,” said Susan Fani, communications director for the Catholic League, a conservative civil rights organization. “And we’re saying, ‘Take a look at this – this shows an animus against Christianity.’”

The Media Research Center today announced its Best Notable Quotables of 2008: The 21st Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews “won” the dubious honor of Quote of the Year for gushing over a Barack Obama speech back in February: “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often….And that is an objective assessment.”

The Internet has surpassed newspapers as the main source for national and international news for Americans, according to a new survey ... Forty percent said they get most of their news from the Internet, up from 24 percent in September 2007, and more than the 35 percent who cited newspapers as their main news source.

From the tuques on our heads to the socks we wear to bed, Canadians are nothing if not practical. When it comes to believing in angels, however, a nationwide poll shows pragmatism takes a back seat to faith for fully two-thirds of adults in this country. Of the 1,022 Canadians surveyed by Ipsos Reid, 67 per cent professed belief in angels: 37 per cent with certainty, 30 per cent somewhat.

I know there are an awful lot of efforts to expunge references to Christmas from the public square. But so long as each of us is permitted to wish friends and strangers Merry Christmas, we retain the most powerful corrective force to political correctness: Just say the words.

More than a quarter of all U.S. teenagers think violent behavior is at least sometimes acceptable, and one in five say they behaved violently toward another person in the past year, according to a new poll. Most said self-defense (87 percent) or helping a friend (73 percent) were acceptable justifications for violence. But 34 percent said revenge was a sufficient motivation.

Scientists said on Friday they had replicated an experiment in which people obediently delivered painful shocks to others if encouraged to do so by authority figures. Seventy percent of volunteers continued to administer electrical shocks -- or at least they believed they were doing so -- even after an actor claimed they were painful, Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University in California found. "What we found is validation of the same argument -- if you put people into certain situations, they will act in surprising, and maybe often even disturbing, ways."

Young women who have an abortion or a miscarriage are more likely to develop a substance abuse problem or psychiatric disorder, a Brisbane researcher has found. Kaeleen Dingle from the University of Queensland's School of Population Health examined 280 women aged between 18 and 23 who have experienced pregnancy, and found a link between losing a baby and mental health issues.

Pro-democracy activists in Shanghai said that the police have assaulted residents who have tried to lodge complaints at official agencies. The restrictions coincide with Thursday's 30th anniversary of Gaige Kaifang, the moment when China opened up to the world under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. An increasing number of critics are pointing out, however, that China's economic success is a hollow victory without political change. The purge was launched at the end of November, after the execution of Yang Jia, a 28-year-old man convicted of killing six policemen.

The Chinese government has quietly begun preventing access again to Web sites that it had stopped blocking during the Olympic Games in China in August, Internet experts said on Tuesday. Liu Jianchao, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, said at his semi-weekly news conference on Tuesday in Beijing that the Chinese government had a right to censor Web sites that violate the country's laws.

A member of the Indiana General Assembly on Tuesday asked the state attorney general and Marion County prosecutor to investigate video-taped advice given at two Planned Parenthood clinics to a woman who said she was underage and wanted an abortion. In one video, taken at a Bloomington clinic and released earlier this month, a woman who said she was a minor who was pregnant by a 31-year-old man was told by a Planned Parenthood representative to seek an abortion in Illinois.

Jonathan Gagne, a courageous teenager at the Joseph-Hermas-Leclerc secondary school in Granby, Que., has just been suspended, and will likely be expelled, for boycotting ERC (the Ethics and Religious Culture course). He is a hero to thousands of angry, mainly Catholic, Quebecers who consider compulsory submission to ERC a violation of their human rights. The ERC curricula are mandated to introduce students to Quebec's rich diversity of religious tenets and "facilitate the spiritual development of students so as to promote self-fulfilment." Since when does the state "facilitate" spiritual self-fulfilment?

A Dutch gay group said Monday it has planned a "Pink Christmas" festival for the first time in Amsterdam, featuring a manger stall with two Josephs and two Marys ... ProGay group chairman Frank van Dalen said Monday the event is intended to increase the choices for homosexual men and women during the Christmas holiday week ... Some Christian groups protested. The organization Christians for Truth said the idea "mocks the core concepts of Evangelism."

A woman who operated an abortion clinic that catered to low-income Latino women has pleaded guilty to nine felony counts of practicing medicine without a license, the district attorney's office announced today. Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, 48, faces as many as nine years in prison when sentenced Feb. 6. "This criminal preyed on women in the Hispanic community and has now been held accountable," said Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis.

Irish voters who rejected the Lisbon Treaty in June will be asked to vote again on the issue next year, paving the way for controversial EU laws to be introduced in Britain. All 27 member states must ratify the Treaty before it comes into force. Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic are the only nations that have not yet agreed to do so ... On Thursday the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen will confirm that a new vote will be held in 2009.

The Christian policeman sacked after a row over gay rights has told how his dismissal after 15 years in the force has ‘devastated’ his family. As The Mail on Sunday revealed in the summer, Graham Cogman objected to being ‘bombarded’ at work by emails and posters promoting events such as Gay History Month. He responded to the ‘politically correct’ campaign by sending emails to colleagues quoting Biblical texts suggesting that homosexual sex was sinful. But he faced accusations of homophobia and a series of disciplinary hearings, culminating 12 days ago in his sacking by Norfolk Police for misconduct.

Staples. Paper clips. Needles. Pencil lead. Shards of wood, plastic and glass. They're all part of the "next step" new arsenal among troubled teens who have grown bored with simply cutting themselves and are now jamming themselves with everyday objects in a horrid ritual doctors are calling "self-embedding." Ironically, it is radiologists – not child psychologists and psychiatrists – who have sounded the alarm on what they're calling a "disturbing trend" among teens, some of whom are pushing sharp items so deep into their own flesh and muscle, many can only be detected by ultrasound and not X-rays.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor claims that the rise of secularism has led to a liberal society, hostile to Christian morals and values, in which religious belief is viewed as "a private eccentricity" and the voice of faith groups is marginalised. The cardinal warns that Britain shows signs of degenerating into a country free of morals, because of its rejection of traditional values and its new emphasis on the rights of the individual.