Why Most Americans are Conservatives during the Holidays – including You

As much as many of you ruse the Christian Right, each of you are one of us during the holidays.

I know. Christmas is over. It’s rapidly approaching time to take down your Christmas tree with New Year’s Day right around the corner. Or, perhaps it’s time to finalize your Hanukkah celebration.

For conservatives like me, I try my best to resist the urge to take down the holiday decorations so fast because I enjoy seeing each Christmas tree and every “Merry Christmas” display found on private streets and public areas alike. I know that you generally enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the holiday season as well, from the Christmas gift spending barrage to the increase of attending holiday services.

Even further, I take pleasure in the deeper meaning of your enjoyment of this time of year.  It serves as a reminder to me that you’re very much a political conservative, too, even if it’s just during the holiday season.

Because, let’s be real: for the most part, America is conservative when it comes to the holiday season.

Well, maybe not all Americans. There is certainly the annual group of liberals that erroneously argue that their rights to deny the existence of the greatest thing ever known is somehow intrinsically tied to the majority of America’s constitutional right to express their religious beliefs. This position crops up with particular fervor during one of the most important religious times of the year.  Once this illusory slight morphs into civic discourse and a subsequent legal argument, it is only a matter of time before even those of you on the far left on issues such as Obamacare, the Ground Zero Mosque, and taxing the rich hug up against your Christian-right brothers and sisters  in defense of Christmas expressions and religious freedom each December.

You have to admit: every time you hear about the latest legal, political, and civic moves by the far- (and mostly atheist- and secular humanist-) left to take “Christ” out of “Christmas” and remove Hanukkah from the public eye, the Christian (or Jewish) political right comes out of the vast majority of you, even if it only lasts for a couple of weeks.

And I like it.

Once you take a moment to get over the shock that, indeed, you do have something in common with a once-monikered Hip Hop Republican, you will be able to see why you share a common disgust towards the blatant disrespect shown towards God-fearing Americans each holiday season.

From one perspective, only in America can a set of folks (folks within a small minority, no less) with an extremely leftist application of our political system argue ardently that their rights as Americans are only protected through the denial of the majority’s right to enjoy the healthy, uplifting, and heart-warming expression of their religious freedom. This annual cycle of diabolically abusing and misapplying the Constitution denies others’ freedom and ignores the history of America.

It strikes the same chord within African Americans across the partisan divide in a way similar to the once-recurring argument that racial hate speech is somehow invaluable to the American conversation and, thus, should be protected under the First Amendment as well without rightful caution. If nothing else, the continual onslaught on this cherished season by a select few provides regular examples as to why the Christian Right remains a force in American politics for some (but not all) of the right reasons, even if the majority of Americans (and notable, Christian liberals) refuse to publicly admit it. There is something to be said about the necessary and noble pushback on the attempts of a few to negate the religious origin of our country and its impact on noteworthy movements. Internally, most of you detest the Christian Right 51 weeks out of the year; this week, you agree with them, voicing your concurrence with your actions despite not saying a word in agreement.

From a spiritual perspective, there is nothing more sinister that affronts personal or political freedom than working to deny Americans the hope and love of God because of the inconvenience of seeing the occasional religious display or for hearing a prayer that atheists do not believe has value anyway. Working to separate at-risk Americans that continue to fall behind in the 21st century from the driving force (be it superstition or spirituality) that pressed for slavery’s reduction (and eventual end) in antebellum America  and overturned Jim Crow is heinous, not patriotic. Over the course of American history, we have proven ourselves repeatedly to be both a spiritual people and a patriotic people that believe in America.

These actions to deny religious expression are not in the tradition of the nation, either, as the “live and let live” notion that Americans have fought for (at varying levels) concerning religious freedom, the lack thereof, or other aspects of American life throughout our nation’s history is clearly not being applied in kind during the holidays. That notion inherently implies that each American is guaranteed the right to express who he or she is through a life with “…liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  We have worked to ensure that principle is applied repeatedly from protecting openness in the military to fending off stereotypes in the most difficult of times. Allowing that notion to be cast aside for Jews and Christians in America for the sake of the visually- or audibly-inconvenienced unbelievers only symbolically spits in the face of what has made America great. As Americans, this is one point that we should increasingly voice our agreement with the political right about.

Each smile at a Nativity display, each greeting of Happy Holidays (i.e., HolyDays), and each public expression of good will towards men (and women) serves as a step that you are taking with us conservatives in defense of this time of year. You know it’s true, even if you won’t admit that it’s a step in the right’s direction.

Lenny McAllister is a political commentator found every Saturday with Democratic pundit Maria Cardona on “CNN Saturday Morning” at 10:30 AM Eastern (9:30 Central / 7:30 AM Pacific.)

Lenny McAllister is the host of the radio show “Get Right with Lenny McAllister” found on LMGILIVE.com and often re-broadcast on Politic365. He appears weekly on “CNN Saturday Morning” with host Randi Kaye and former DNC Communications Director Maria Cardona at 10:30 AM Eastern Time. He also regularly appears weekdays on CNN's "Early Start" at 5am - 7am and "CNN Newsroom" at 12:30pm Eastern. He also appears as a political commentator on multiple outlets including Sirius-XM Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Radio in Australia, and Chicago Public Radio. Lenny has written previously for a number of publications including Rushmore Drive, Global Grind, and The Chicago Defender. In 2009, McAllister was a panelist at the 10th Annual State of the Black Union and the CNN panel discussion Young & Black In America: Empowering the Next Generation of African American Leaders. In 2010, Lenny was featured in the Studio 360 series “American Icons” in the episode, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He was also featured in the November 2010 Essence Magazine roundtable discussion “Race (Still) Matters” that featured the Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP President Ben Jealous, and CNN’s Soledad O’Brien.

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