Joy to the World - or Else

One constant teabagger refrain is that government is too big, too intrusive and too all-encompassing. So one California teabagger naturally wants to require schools to play Christmas carols and students to listen.

Yes, the annual War on Christmas and the teabagger movement have come together in Redding, California. Merry Hyatt, president of the Redding Tea Party Patriots, is so incensed by her local public school not bombarding kids with holiday tunes that she's starting a ballot initiative signature campaign to fix this. If the initiative passes, schools would be forced to play carols - even overtly religious ones - and those who refuse would be dragged into court.

Hyatt, who as a substitute teacher really should know better, said she launched the initiative to push a specifically religious means of getting students to clean up their act: "He's the prince of peace; he's the only one who can get these kids to stop being so violent." She is unapologetic about her intentions, saying, "Bottom line is Christmas is about Christmas. That's why we have it. It's not about winter solstice or Kwanzaa. It's like, 'wow you guys, it's called Christmas for a reason.'"

She seems to be missing the point about a few things - such as that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and that not everyone who does celebrate it does it the way she does. Somehow, I doubt that Jews or other non-Christians would appreciate being forced to listen to Christmas music. And oh yes, there's a little thing called separation of church and state. Blaring such specifically Christian music as "Angels We Have Heard on High" or "Joy to the World" in a public school most definitely counts as advocating religion. Even if the initiative passes - and that's a big if - it would last about four seconds before being struck down as unconstitutional.

And for a supposedly get-government-off-our-backs teabagger, Hyatt apparently doesn't realize that her initiative would put government in charge of forcing religious beliefs on people. Anyone who has ever studied the history of governmental religious doctrine knows that it always ends badly. People who follow the "wrong" religions - or even the "wrong" form of the "right" religion - always end up being discriminated against or worse.

Of course, she seems to have no problem with forcing her own beliefs on people. She is saved and pure while everyone else is a godless heathen, you see.