I have never made a secret of my agnostic leanings. Due to a grog induced notion, I even have a tattoo of the Flying Spaghetti Monster who’s holy visage is pictured above.

Despite my misgivings with organized religion, I am not so insecure in myself that I have to lash out and demand that all mention and observances of other faiths be hidden from my view. I can’t and won’t be offended when somebody gives me greetings in good spirit reflecting Hanukkah, Christmas, Ramadan or Arbor Day for that matter. I enjoy well wishes from people no matter what the basis of their comment.

It all seems so simple yet so many people have difficulty with an open observance and celebration of a holiday with religious underpinnings. Every year there is some fool out there who get’s their panties into a knot over an open display of Christmas in Canada.

The myopic imbecile for 2012 is Ashu Solo who is pictured below.

Upon discovering that the city of Saskatoon was displaying the term “Merry Christmas” on their buses, Solo sent an enraged letter to city administration demanding that the greeting be removed or a complaint would be filed with the Human Rights Commission (yup, yet another wasted venture into Canada’s foolish system of Human Rights Commissions).

Solo is a known and notable idiot in Saskatoon who is chronically aggrieved. Every city has at least one (often a few) fool like him and they typically dismiss them. What was interesting though is that city administration sent a memo suggesting pulling the greetings upon Solo’s complaint. It was only upon exposure on radio host John Gormley’s show that the city of Saskatoon administration suddenly backtracked and dropped the matter upon their local council that kept the greeting on the buses.

The issue here is twofold. There are nuts like Solo who can and should be ignored and dismissed, and there are cowardly hypersensitive bureaucrats who duck and run in light of anything that could conceivably offend somebody rather that use simple common sense. It is Canada’s gormless bureaucrats who are far more disturbing and troublesome than fools like Solo.

Some make the case that if one religion’s greeting is displayed, then all religion’s greetings must be displayed. I call bullshit! Not every religion is equal in representation and not all of them need to be recognized in their observances equally by local administrations. It would be idiotic to demand that government in Iran should openly celebrate Hanukkah or that the city of Islamabad should hang Christmas lights in December. Those places will openly display whatever the majority of the people want.

To have an administration celebrate an observance that is in the majority is not an offense to the minority. I do not feel that my Pastafarianism is threatened by Christmas trees nor do I feel that the City of Calgary needs to hang lasagna noodles in City Hall for my benefit.

Christmas is a tradition and a person need not be (and many are not) Christians in order to celebrate it and enjoy it. It is by far the biggest Holiday in all of North America and that will not be changing any time soon. Those who really can’t handle that really should do some self-examination as the problem is not with Christianity, it is with themselves.

It is rarely people who practice minority religions who have a problem with Christmas anyway. Traditionally it is homegrown whitebread atheists who selectively attack the faiths of others due to some notion that it will lead to some form of world equity. It used to be yuppies and now hipsters have assumed the role. I am sure some other group of clowns will assume the mantle of indignant atheists for the next generation.

In closing, Merry Christmas and lighten up. It is an awesome holiday to brighten a long Canadian winter.