Christmas is a religious holiday. Deal with it.

A growing trend in America is to mock people who establish and maintain faith.

Atheists, once content to live and let live, have become evangelists, taking to the public square (or HBO specials or big-screen movies) their war on churches.

Courts have slid down a slippery slope of nonsense. Schools have become places where actual history is ignored in the name of a political correctness where great care is taken to avoid offending anyone, except, of course, Christians. In doing so, they’re lying to children. And the children know it.

Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. Write to him at Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182, or e-mail.

Take the case of Brittany McComb, valedictorian of the 2006 graduating class of Foothill High School in Henderson, Nev. She wasn’t only tops that year. She scored the highest grade point average in school history.

Complying with a school district requirement, she submitted her four-minute speech, to be presented to her 400 classmates and their families at the graduation ceremony, to school officials.

They, in turn, submitted it to the ubiquitous school attorney. Fearful that the district would be sued for something a student said, the attorney deleted her three references to the Christian Bible, her use of the term “Lord” and her one reference to “Christ.”

But when she got to the microphone, Brittany started delivering the speech as she wrote it. It was not evangelical. It was about as vanilla a speech as a person could give. In essence, she talked about how she, like her classmates, searched for meaning and purpose in their lives through all kinds of venues — reading, parties, socializing, service work, movies. And she said she became fulfilled when she realized her Lord was her shepherd. He provided the meaning.

As she spoke, school officials unplugged the microphone and the poor child stood there perplexed. Amid shouts of, “Let her speak,” from the audience, Brittney was, instead, humiliated as some officious official called up the next speaker who, it must be assumed, stuck to an approved script.

Hearing of the case, the Rutherford Institute filed a federal lawsuit in Brittany’s behalf — not asking for money, just that the law be clarified.

It is well-settled that public school teachers cannot provide religious instruction or advice, nor can a public school require a student to pray or participate in group prayer.

That ruling, which dates to 1963, is well-founded in both constitutional law and Christian teaching. The nation’s founders knew that religion would suffer if it became a government enterprise, so the Bill of Rights says government cannot “establish” a church. In Christian theology, prayer, to have any meaning, must be personal, voluntary and sincere. So it follows that teachers, as agents of government, cannot properly take on the job of religious instruction.

But rather than stick with that precise, narrow and understandable ruling, Christian words, deeds and symbols have been ejected from the mainstream of life — a development wholly inconsistent with what the Constitution requires and common sense dictates.

Rutherford’s lawyers pointed out that Brittany has rights, too. Specifically, when asked, she has a First Amendment right to explain, in her own words, the factors she believes contributed to her success as a student, even if others didn’t agree, and especially to be free from government coercion to deliver a speech she felt was insufficient, inaccurate and not in keeping with her conscience.

In June 2007, the U.S. District Court for Nevada denied a request by the school district to dismiss the case. That ruling was appealed to the (notoriously wacky) 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which did dismiss the case. The Rutherford lawyers asked for a U.S. Supreme Court review, which, in November, was denied, ending the matter.

That means a school attorney in Nevada, probably just trying to err on the side of caution by editing a student’s speech, has once again expanded the nonsense that passes for reasoned rules regarding what public schools must or must not do when it comes to expressions of faith by students.

Technically, every school district in Mississippi should have submitted every printed program for any “winter break” event to district counsel who should, in turn, have halted any plan for the kiddies to sing “Silent Night,” “Away in a Manger” or “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

That probably didn’t happen anywhere, at least in this state, and at least this year. Some day it might. The silliness is intensifying rapidly.

As hard as folks try, though, it’s hard to envision a day when Christmas is completely divorced from Christianity.

Maybe the best way to deal with in-your-face atheism is in-your-face Christianity.

Here’s the T-shirt: Christmas is a religious holiday. Deal with it.

Oh, and have a merry one. And a blessed one.