‘Tis the season…
I just got into a huge fight with, like, half my office. It all started when a co-worker mentioned that she’d heard something on the radio this morning about Lucy Turnbull, the mayor of Sydney, outlawing Christian Christmas carols in the city. There was a predictably huffy response from a couple other people, saying that it was censorship and that “If non-Christian people don’t want to be offended, maybe they should just stay home.” I tried to inject some sanity. First, I can’t believe that she got the story right. I can’t verify because it hasn’t been posted on any of the news sites (which gives weight to my theory that it’s not a real issue and merely some wanker talk-back radio host mishearing a quote or something), but there’s no way I’d be, like, arrested for walking down Martin Place and singing “Silent Night.” I mean, duh. She insisted that she’d heard the story accurately. So I theorized that maybe Turnbull was just saying that the city wouldn’t fund any carolers to sing exclusively Christian carols, and that I thought that was a fine idea. Mistake. Immediately I had about fifteen pissed off people telling me that this country was “founded on Christianity” and “ordered around the Christian calendar” and that if people who migrated in got offended by hearing about it then they could bloody well leave. I kept trying to explain that it’s not about being offended, it’s about f***king separation of church and state, and that regardless of whether the majority of the population is Christian, an elected official shouldn’t be seen to favor that religion over all others. Things just got worse. The normally friendly guy across from me started ranting about “guys in turbans at the pub when I’m not allowed to wear a hat”! The girl behind me – who’s an immigrant herself, I might add – actually argued that Australian society was intrinsically Christian and if people didn’t like it, “they shouldn’t come.” I finally gave up. It’s insane. I’d never realized before how xenophobic and anti-PC some of these people are. Nobody’s saying that you can’t sing Christian (or Buddhist or Jewish or whatever) songs all you want. All I’m saying is that it should be an individual activity, not a state-sponsored one. Is that too difficult to understand?

And now I look like the office Communist or something, simply for trying to be rational. Sheesh.