I'd like to take you back a few years, to a time when South Park was just becoming popular. I had tuned in to radio "fluff" for a long drive, and was listening to a Christian family radio program (it wasn't "Focus on the Family", but a similar group). On the show, they were talking about "South Park" and explaining it for Christian viewers who hadn't seen the show.

It actually got quite amusing as the guest attempted to explain the "horrible" Mr. Hanky episode in a way that didn't offend his listeners. He was explaining how the show was coarse and vulgar, and how good Christians should boycott the show and its sponsors (without explaining, of course, how we were supposed to find out who the sponsors WERE without watching the show...but I digress).

Never one to bow to an agenda, but always one to be vigilant, I decided to put SP on my watch list. I hadn't heard of the show, but after asking around, found a friend who had many episodes on tape, including the controversial first "Mr. Hanky" episode.

Needless to say, I enjoyed it. I may have condemned myself to a few centuries at the wrong end of a red hot pitchfork for that admission, but I am who I am.

What really struck me, though, is how the conservatives missed the point of the message, which I'll get to shortly.

Flash forward to Christmas season 2005. An increasingly secular society is attempting to strike out all public displays and acknowledgement of Christmas. Michael Newdow is leading the charge to try to have it eliminated as a secular holiday. Why? Because it offends.

Now, back to the South Park episode. See, the whole point of the episode (for those two of you who have never seen it) is how the intolerance that strikes out any public expression of one's beliefs is narrowminded and wrong. Mr. Hanky comes in as the school searches for "nonoffensive" Christmas icons (this, of course, is also the genesis for the "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch" song, Cartman's politically incorrect suggestion for a nonoffensive Christmas song...but again with the digressing). The episode, in short, was a compelling argument from the other side of the fence that SUPPORTS the Christian right in their attempt to express Christmas in a way that they feel appropriate.

Sad to say, such "forest for the trees" mentality is all too common among some in the Christian community. We alienate potential allies in our stubborn insistence on being right.