There's a Stranger in the Manger

Nativity Display Can Stay. And so can the Zoroaster poster, written on the back of a tag sale sign. Sadly, the Festivus message must go.

I found this story entertaining, not simply because every single year another creche scandal arises, but because Zoroastrianism is PRETTY GOT-DAMNED FUNNY.

There's a hideous creche that goes up annually in my hometown on the lawn of the town hall. It must be at least 30 years old, because I remember it as a child. Anyhow.

Even as a young socialist/nihilist/rabblerouser, it never fucking occurred to me that this creche was a violation of that...ah... church/state separation stuff. Too busy reading up on the Shining Path and writing AFRICA UNITE on my All-Stars, I guess. (Give the anarchist a cigarette.)

After I left my hometown, people from New York City started moving there in droves. This sudden influx of New Yorkers meant the inevitable import of non-Christians, which really freaked a lot of people right the fuck out. Remember that episode of Little House on the Prairie when Laura met the Jewish blacksmith and discovered that he didn't REALLY have horns under his hat?

Hasn't happened yet back home. Most of what they know about Jews they learned from that episode of Geraldo with the flying chairs.

So the first thing the City Folk did after settling in with their overpowered SUVs and duck boots and Bag Balm was write letters to the editor of the local paper (formerly the province of the truly crazy and Town Supervisor candidates) decrying what they felt was a tacit endorsement of Christianity. Of course they were right. Absolutely they were right. Really, I mean, it's silly that we didn't do something about it sooner.

The problem is that the New City Folks coming in like gangbusters and the fact that they were The Jews on top of that made some ordinarily blasé -to-the-point-of-being-comatose locals circle their wagons in a most apoplectic fashion. All over a rode hard and put away wet plastic nativity scene manufactured (some sources say) only about 14 years after the birth of Christ himself. More than anything, it was an embarassing statement on the the tightwaddish ambivalence of the Christian community.

I don't even think that whoever's in charge of putting the nativity scene up every year did so out of good Christian Soldier duty. I think they did it because it's just what we've always done. Unfortunately, the hue and cry--the call to tolerance of other world views--didn't raise awareness of other cultures whatsoever: it only served to cement the locals' "MY JESUS! MINES!" chest-thumping sensibility, which up until that point had been fair-to-middling.

Of course, they couldn't hate The Jews forever. I mean, we have a bagel store now.

BAGELS!