The NYT's Adam Cohen on how some religious conservatives are pushing hard against retailers who don't use the phrase "Merry Christmas."

Some excerpts:

Religious conservatives have a cause this holiday season: the commercialization of Christmas. They're for it.

The American Family Association is leading a boycott of Target for not using the words "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. (Target denies it has an anti-Merry-Christmas policy.) The Catholic League boycotted Wal-Mart in part over the way its Web site treated searches for "Christmas." Bill O'Reilly, the Fox anchor who last year started a "Christmas Under Siege" campaign, has a chart on his Web site of stores that use the phrase "Happy Holidays," along with a poll that asks, "Will you shop at stores that do not say 'Merry Christmas'?"

This campaign - which is being hyped on Fox and conservative talk radio - is an odd one. Christmas remains ubiquitous, and with its celebrators in control of the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and every state supreme court and legislature, it hardly lacks for powerful supporters. There is also something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell "holiday trees."

What is less obvious, though, is that Christmas's self-proclaimed defenders are rewriting the holiday's history. They claim that the "traditional" American Christmas is under attack by what John Gibson, another Fox anchor, calls "professional atheists" and "Christian haters." But America has a complicated history with Christmas, going back to the Puritans, who despised it. What the boycotters are doing is not defending America's Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda. ...

The Christmas that Mr. O'Reilly and his allies are promoting - one closely aligned with retailers, with a smack-down attitude toward nonobservers - fits with their campaign to make America more like a theocracy, with Christian displays on public property and Christian prayer in public schools.

It does not, however, appear to be catching on with the public. That may be because most Americans do not recognize this commercialized, mean-spirited Christmas as their own. Of course, it's not even clear the campaign's leaders really believe in it. Just a few days ago, Fox News's online store was promoting its "Holiday Collection" for shoppers. Among the items offered to put under a "holiday tree" was "The O'Reilly Factor Holiday Ornament." After bloggers pointed this out, Fox changed the "holidays" to "Christmases."

Personally, I'm agnostic. But on the other hand, I like the secular interpretation of Christmas -- not as an excuse to run up credit card bills (years ago, we established a family policy of a $30 per person ceiling on gifts), but but to celebrate what should be some of the best aspects of the human experience.

Generosity is one of those aspects, but I would differentiate between generosity of spirit and generosity of wallet. If a child has a super-high-achieving parent who gives them trinkets but no time, the parent is actually sharing that which is surplus to them. That's not generosity of spirit.

(I once heard a Zen Buddhist monk refer to Buddhism as a process of losing, until you've lost everything. When you've done that, you have it all.)

Along with generosity, I would place the other seasonal standards, like kindness, peace on earth and goodwill towards men.

With a lot of the super-religious conservatives who are being oppressive, bullying knobs in Jesus's name, I can only speculate that He would be appalled by them.

My interpretation of Jesus Christ is he was a very cool guy. I think he would want people to focus on the spirit of the season surrounding His birth, not what it was called.

I don't get the hateful nature of some religious conservatives. Where did they get the idea that by bullying in His name, He would love them more?