{"id":1641,"date":"2006-12-09T02:20:42","date_gmt":"2006-12-09T02:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html"},"modified":"2006-12-09T02:20:42","modified_gmt":"2006-12-09T02:20:42","slug":"95-say-yes-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html","title":{"rendered":"95% say “Yes” to…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Americans agree: It\u2019s \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 <\/span>Reuters<\/span>
\nPosted Friday, December 08, 2006
\n<\/span>
\nAmericans are ready to put \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d back into holiday shopping, a new poll shows. The majority of Americans surveyed \u2014 95 percent \u2014 said they were not offended by a \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d greeting in stores, according to a poll by Zogby International.
\n<\/span>
\nHowever, 32 percent of respondents said they took offense at \u201cHappy Holidays,\u201d the religiously neutral alternative promoted over the last few years as inclusive and inoffensive.
\nThe \u201cwar over Christmas\u201d has been a battleground in the so-called culture wars in the United States, which has far higher church attendance rates than most other developed nations.<\/span>
\nA good gauge of the national mood may be retail giant Wal-Mart, which this season reversed its policy of limiting the use of \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cLast year\u2019s decision by many retailers \u2014 including retail giant Wal-Mart \u2014 to curtail the use of \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d for fear of offending those who don\u2019t celebrate the holiday caused a backlash from conservative Christian groups as well as consumers,\u201d Zogby said in a statement.<\/span>
\nPolls have shown that more than 80 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians.<\/span>
\nAlong partisan lines, 8 percent of the Democrats polled said they were offended at a \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d greeting compared to less than 1 percent of the Republicans surveyed. Conservative Christians are a key Republican base.<\/span>
\nThe Zogby Interactive poll surveyed 12,806 adults Nov. 21 to 29 and has a margin of error of 0.9 percentage points.<\/span>
\n\u201cWal-Mart\u2019s change of heart this season could help bring more people into their stores \u2014 35 percent of respondents said hearing \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d makes them more likely to shop there this season,\u201d Zogby added.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans agree: It\u2019s \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 Reuters Posted Friday, December 08, 2006 Americans are ready to put \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d back into holiday shopping, a new poll shows. The majority of Americans surveyed \u2014 95 percent \u2014 said they were not offended by a \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d greeting in stores, according to a poll by Zogby International.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent"],"yoast_head":"\n95% say "Yes" to... - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"95% say "Yes" to... - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Americans agree: It\u2019s \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 Reuters Posted Friday, December 08, 2006 Americans are ready to put \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d back into holiday shopping, a new poll shows. The majority of Americans surveyed \u2014 95 percent \u2014 said they were not offended by a \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d greeting in stores, according to a poll by Zogby International.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-09T02:20:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"95% say \"Yes\" to... - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"95% say \"Yes\" to... - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Americans agree: It\u2019s \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 Reuters Posted Friday, December 08, 2006 Americans are ready to put \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d back into holiday shopping, a new poll shows. The majority of Americans surveyed \u2014 95 percent \u2014 said they were not offended by a \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d greeting in stores, according to a poll by Zogby International.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2006-12-09T02:20:42+00:00","author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html","name":"95% say \"Yes\" to... - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-12-09T02:20:42+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-09T02:20:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/95-say-yes-to.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"95% say “Yes” to…"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}