The American Family Association, with apparently nothing better to do, has called for the boycott of Gap due to a recent television ad that they are calling “anti-Christmas.”

It certainly is one of the most annoying commercials I’ve seen, but the claim that it somehow represents a threat to Christmas is a bit farfetched.

For a few decades now, religious conservatives and evangelicals have been warning us about the supposed “war on Christmas” that is perpetually threatening the foundations of our civilization. From retailers that don’t paste “Christmas” on their walls to the dangers of Islam-o-fascists, Christianity is on the brink of being suffocated, and with it, the soul of our nation.

Despite these annuals warnings from the Right, a little bit of analysis may throw some wrenches into their paranoid thesis.

For example, Target and Macy’s, two companies that have been targeted by religious groups for being insufficiently Christian, offer hundreds of inexpensive and practical Christmas-themed gifts that are highly beneficial to poor Christians. Many of them also sponsor food drives and toy donations, and there is almost always Salvation Army bells ringing out front receiving donations that exemplify Christian charity.

The freedom of the individual to voluntarily choose a secular or religious version of Christmas to celebrate is not enough for the religious warriors, however. They desire the doctrinal imposition of Christianity by, of course, the iron fist of the state.

But as history has shown, the merger of religion and state has had some very dangerous results.

Ironically, the New England Puritans attempted to ban the Christmas holiday. In the late 17th Century, the Puritans associated the observance of Christmas with Catholicism, and sought to use the government to restrict it wherever they could. This was part of their overall war and personal liberty, and one can see their legacy even today with those awful and stifling Blue Laws.

Coerced morality, as many libertarian Christians have argued, often creates worse results than the sins themselves. Morality, manners, and ethics (fundamental aspects of a free society) are best enforced through voluntary institutions and lose their sanctity when backed up by the use or the threat of government force.

Additionally, these religious conservatives are the same people who have bent over backwards to defend torture, war, the erosion of civil liberties, and the glorification of the military: the worst aspects of state power, in which we all, as taxpayers, are coerced into paying for.

Christianity has survived Roman persecution, imprisonment of Christians for refusing to kill for the state when drafted, and Communist purges; I think it can survive a silly Gap ad as well.

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For more of Robert’s work, please visit his Libertarian Examiner blog.

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