Tree gets the heave

Last week, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill made a decision that was so stupid, I almost lost respect for their basketball team.

Almost.

For years, UNC displayed Christmas trees in two of their campus libraries. I’d say trees are probably one of the most generalized Christmas – excuse me, holiday – icons we have in this country. Not surprisingly, there was no manger scene on display, and no sign of anything related to the actual beginning of Christmas.

If you’re like some students on this campus and have decided a college education deems you intelligent enough to declare the absence of a god, then you may not know what I’m talking about. But for the rest of you who suffer from that disease called “religion” – or even humility – carry on.

Anyway, I guess these trees proved just too symbolic to be put out again this year.
This was made obvious when “at least a dozen” employees complained to the head librarian.

How dare a state university show any recognition of the country’s biggest holiday, especially when it angers twelve employees? How dare a university do anything without checking with those twelve employees first? How dare a university show any recognition of a majority rule?

How dare a university do anything so ridiculous?

I’m also going to go out on a crazy limb here and guess that a majority of UNC’s student body celebrates Christmas.

But rather than acknowledging the majority of students, the university chose to acknowledge a minority group of employees.

Funny how the word “majority” has come to mean so many different things in our country. To me, it means more than half. When Obama won the election, the majority mattered. It was respected, and it was celebrated. I was not in that majority, but I understood the simple math that made me part of the losing team. I respect what makes our country a democracy.

So imagine my confusion when suddenly, for those UNC students who celebrate Christmas, their “majority” status was no longer important. Now, it’s being used against them. It’s being used as a measure of narrow-mindedness, and as a reason to justify an utter disregard of their beliefs.  

A lot of those students probably pay tuition dollars toward things they might not agree with, but don’t have a choice. Some of my tuition was used to pay a piece-of-filth politician to come share his “wisdom” with our school. Case in point.

Why, then, is the overwhelmingly popular holiday preference ignored because of another’s opinion? How can a democracy place more importance on one person’s preference than another’s?

I understand that not everyone celebrates Christmas. But a majority of our country does. Minorities should have every right to celebrate in their own way, right alongside the majority. But the second a minority’s personal disagreement is given the power to completely erase the importance of a majority’s, we reach the highest level of injustice and discrimination possible.

Call me politically incorrect. But I’d rather be politically incorrect than incapable of acknowledging a majority, whether I am a part of it or not.