Wal-Mart Negotiates Satisfactory End, to End Planned Boycott by Christians

    After a series of reports by WorldNetDaily, Wal-Mart officials have satisfied demands by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which had called for a national boycott after accusing the retail giant of discriminating against Christmas while promoting other seasonal holidays by name, such as Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.

    Catholic League president Bill Donohue said Wal-Mart has apologized, withdrawn "its insane statement" on the origins of Christmas and revised its website.

    "This is a sweet victory for the Catholic League, Christians in general, and people of all faiths," Donohue said. "And it means that Wal-Mart can now enter the Christmas season without this cloud hanging over it."


    Donohue said a customer service employee named Kirby who touched off the controversy with an e-mail about the origins of Christmas has been fired.

    Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman released a statement last night saying, "We sincerely apologize to any person or organization that was offended by the inappropriate and inflammatory comments made by this former associate."

    Donohue said Wal-Mart also has adjusted its website so that when a customer types "Christmas" in its search engine, he no longer gets, "We've brought you to our Holiday page based on your search." Now the customer is taken directly to a site named "Christmas."

    Wal-Mart says it will not change its policy of encouraging employees to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," Donohue noted.

    "This [authorized generic 'Happy Holidays" greeting by Wal-Mart employees] is dumb, but it was never part of the Catholic League's complaint," he said. "We only trigger boycotts when we've been grossly offended."

    The controversy was sparked when a woman recently complained to Wal-Mart that the store was replacing its "Merry Christmas" greeting with "Happy Holidays."

    The League says the woman received an e-mail response from a customer-service representative named Kirby, reading exactly as follows:


    Quote:

    Walmart is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this. The majority of the world still has different practices other than "christmas" which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism. The colors associated with "christmas" red and white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom. Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world.



    Fogleman confirmed the original note was written by a Wal-Mart representative and explained yesterday:


    "We at Wal-Mart believe this e-mail between a temporary associate and one of our valued customers was entirely inappropriate. Its contents in no way represent the policies, practices or views of our company. This associate, who was hired less than three weeks ago, is no longer employed by our company."




    The Associated Press picked up on the story, more than 19 hours after first broken by WorldNetDaily.

    Fogleman says the original e-mail from Kirby was taken out of context, and Wal-Mart's use of the "Happy Holidays" theme was to be inclusive of celebrations from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Eve in addition to Christmas.



    On Wednesday, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jolanda Stewart told WND her company was "absolutely not" banning Christmas as the Catholic League had been claiming.

    To demonstrate an instance of discrimination, Donohue pointed out, and WND confirmed, that when using the company's online search engine, if the word "Hanukkah" was entered, 200 items for sale were returned.

    The term "Kwanzaa" yielded 77.

    But when "Christmas" was entered, the message returned said: "We've brought you to our 'Holiday' page based on your search."


    WND's screen capture of Wal-Mart's website shows when 'Christmas' is entered in search engine, results are deferred to a 'Holiday' page.


    However, the search also brought up a secondary link on which to click, which revealed 7,970 items that matched the "Christmas" term.

    When WND entered the name "Jesus," 5,668 items were displayed.

    The complaint was that only Christmas, and no other religion's holiday, brought up the special [generic] holiday page.

    "We already serve a diverse customer base, and we're just trying to help them to celebrate their individual needs and wants," Stewart said.

    "Stewart's remark is flatulent," Donohue said. "If Wal-Mart had a 'Holiday' section on its website that directed customers to its Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa sites, that would not be objectionable."

    As WorldNetDaily has previously reported, the celebration of Christmas is a major cultural battleground in the U.S., dating back to colonial America when Christians in New England outlawed Christmas, saying it was based more on ancient pagan traditions than instruction from the Bible.

    Today, followers of ancient paganism strive to remind the public about the heathen origins of traditions that many may never have questioned.


The article goes on to detail Wiccan attempts to de-Christianize the Christmas holiday.

And after, there is a long list of links to other attempts nationwide to ban or suppress public Christian celebration of the Christmas season.