Christmas, a lasting tradition

Polly Toynbee, columnist and honorary associate of the National Secular Society, responds to claims that secularists are trying to eliminate Christmas. "No one is out to ban Christmas or Christianity - not atheists nor other faiths. Yet every year the same urban myths are repeated about the banning of Christmas by some pantomime villain local authority suffering from 'political correctness gone mad'.... we are innocent. It is the Christians who are stirring this dangerous pot, inventing non-stories, yearning for martyrdom - and worse, fermenting an outraged sense among the mainly secular population that they had better call themselves Christian because, as the BNP [The far-right British Nationalist Party] says, British 'Heritage, Tradition and Culture' ... are under threat from Muslims. While pretending to attack us, covertly these Christians stir resentment against immigrants."

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