Bob’s the one in the hat.
During our sporadic Fox News viewing on Wednesday we didn’t happen to catch our new friend Bob “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato” Marley’s appearance there. So, we did a Google News search, and learned all we needed to about his Christmas Crusade.
Marley’s appearance there. So, we did a Google News search, and learned all we needed to about his Christmas Crusade.First, from Catholic Online, we found out why he has the time to post comments to our obscure blog:
Massachusetts developer Robert Marley, his brother and a friend were incensed by last year’s efforts to neutralize Christmas. This year, he put his construction business on hold to create the Committee to Save Christmas in Massachusetts – a regional group that is trying to remind retailers of the reason for the season.
While we applaud Bob’s sacrifice, we do have to say that making prank phone calls to Best Buy is a lot easier than working construction … or, you know, working at anything.
But here’s more, from the North Shore TownOnline:
Locally, three Lynnfield guys are leading the charge to take back Christmas. Brothers Robert and Kevin Marley and their business partner Steve Ciambelli have started the Coalition to save Christmas in Massachusetts.
“It’s very simple,” says Kevin Marley. “We’re talking about saving our traditions.”
The Marleys and Ciambelli, who call themselves just regular guys, have done something a little irregular. They have made the malls and shopping centers across the state the front line on the fight for Christmas.
[…]
“What makes this so offensive is this is a deliberate attack on Christmas,” says Robert Marley.
Yes, Bed, Bath, & Beyond, your “Happy Holidays” is a deliberate attack on Christmas, and therefore, a deliberate attack on Christians like Bob. Oh, the humanity! This must be the kind of persecution that the Bible predicted would afflict the saints in the last days – but who knew it would be so ugly!
“What’s next?” asks Robert Marley. “Do you shoot the Easter Bunny?”
Just to be safe, the Bunny better pack heat come spring.
But back to the Christmas Crusaders.
”We’re not activists,” says Ciambelli, although the three are a little taken by the all the attention their coalition and Web site has drawn.
And they probably went on Fox News just to express their consternation at all the attention.
What is comes down to, what it’s all about for the Marleys and Ciambelli, is saving Christmas and all its traditions for their families and for their kids.
”How does everything get changed right under our noses?” asks Kevin Marley, who points out that not only has the assault on Christmas been gradual and steady, it’s come at a time when we’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that we have to be respectful and tolerant of other faiths and traditions.
And the Marleys and Ciambelli want to know how that all works out to something fair.
“What about the tolerance for us?” asks Robert Marley. “Why do we have to tolerate everyone else when no one wants to tolerate Christmas?
It’s sad that nobody in the whole state of MA will tolerate these three guys, or their holiday (an obscure celebration called “Christmas”) — especially after they’ve had to tolerate everyone else for so long (and some of their fellow Massachusettsians are real jerks)!. So, to make it up to the Crusaders, instead of just instructing all their employees to wish them an “EXTRA Merry Marley and Ciambelli Christmas, with sugar on it,” the stores should probably give these brave men some free stuff — you know, to compensate them for all the pain and suffering they experience by being lumped in with everyone else who was celebrating a holiday this season when it came time to extend to them a perfunctory and insincere commercial greeting.
“Please, just give us back our day.”
Um, Bob, it’s JESUS’S day. Get your own birthday.
But actually, Bob isn’t the nuttiest guy quoted in these pieces. That would be Fox News’s John “I’m Not O’Reilly” Gibson.
“I used to call those opposed to Christmas ‘secularists,’ but the shadows have become clearer,” said Gibson, who authored the 2005 book, The War on Christmas. “These are angry atheists. They have had it with believers. They don’t want to talk to them, listen to them or be on the same side as believers.”
“Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union said that Christmas could be celebrated in the homes of Christians and their churches,” said Gibson. “The implication was that it shouldn’t be celebrated in public. If the faithful are interested in this, they ought to look at the wider picture. This is an organized bunch. Heads-up, believers, they are coming after you.”
Heads-up, believers, you’d probably emulate the Easter Bunny (and Dr. Mike, Ph.D.), and get a big bunch of Christmas guns. After all, this is WAR, and it’s either you or that teenaged Target clerk!
Do you shoot the Easter Bunny? Well, if we’re talking about Easter, shouldn’t we be crucifying the bunny and seeing if he forgives us our sins and comes back from the dead? Wait, that was Jesus. Doesn’t this guy even realize how much he shoots himself in the foot by insisting on protecting Christmas and tradition and morals and then making reference to a secular symbol for a Christian holiday? Unless this is the start of the War on Easter!
Left by y_run_i_do on December 1st, 2006