Evidence of how controversial Christmas has become can be seen by comparing two votes in the House of Representatives: the October vote to recognize the importance of Ramadan and the December vote to recognize the importance of Christmas. The House resolution on Ramadan sailed through 376-0. The resolution on Christmas got 372 votes, but nine Democrats opposed the measure, though most had favored Ramadan earlier. Ten Democrats only voted "present," and 40 failed to vote either way. Possibly they were shopping.
Doubtless the opponents of Christmas are moved by various discrete motives. Some are bigots or cranks. Some are truly alarmed by Christian fervor in the dead of winter. To be sure, some probably do fear that signs of any religion will put us on a slippery slope to theocracy. But I also see another motive, a motive that has animated the most egregious public nuisances at large in recent American history: the liberal activist.
The liberal activist aspires to be an agent of "progress." In fact, the liberal activist, whether male or female, often calls himself a progressive. Yet through the years, you will spot no coherent system of political values motivating liberal reforms. Sometimes the liberals might be motivated by liberty or equality or fraternity, but sometimes they are not. They may be against censorship, but sometimes dirty words offend the feminists among them, and ethnic slurs arouse other co-conspirators.
There is, however, one political value that can be discerned motivating every one of their legendary reforms, from the ambitious (world peace) to the trivial (the criminalization of trans fats). That value is to disturb one's neighbor, to disturb the peace. In all civilized criminal codes, such behavior constitutes a misdemeanor. Yet it is at the heart of the liberal project.
Disturbing the peace is, I believe, at the heart of rendering Christmas controversial. Surely disturbing the peace was the motive on the House floor when Ramadan and Christmas came to a vote. All the opponents of Christmas were liberals. Their adolescent complaint denies all Americans the opportunity to contemplate peacefully what is conceivably Western civilization's greatest event.