Over the last several years, a time of year that was traditionally a period of goodwill and universal brotherhood, when even actual brothers somehow managed to set aside sibling rivalries for a month or so, Christmas has become an annual battleground between decent people and a relatively small number of secular leftists who insist on carrying on as if auditioning for the role of Scrooge.

As many of you are no doubt aware, this year, Fort Collins, Wyoming, got a jump start on the foolishness. The town fathers, by making every effort not to offend anyone, have, like so many other town fathers in America, figured out a way to offend the greatest possible number.

I, for one, blame the ACLU. That’s the group which, under the guise of promoting and protecting civil rights, has managed to bully any number of municipalities into accepting their lie that the Constitution demands the separation of church and state when, in fact, it does nothing of the kind. Aside from making freedom of religion an irrevocable right, the only thing the Constitution does is prohibit Congress from establishing a religion. There’s nothing in the document that prevents Fort Collins from placing a Christmas tree or 20 Christmas trees in the town square.

But the bah-humbuggers raised such a stink over the course of the last few years that the city established a 17-member Holiday Display Task Force to deal with such matters as the color of holiday lights (red and green are out, blue and white are in), whether they can make do without an actual Christmas tree but allow one to be shown on a flat screen video panel, and whether or not Santa Claus is a religious figure. One wonders if “A Christmas Carol” or “Miracle on 34th Street” airs on a local TV station in December, the Task Force will demand that “The Last Temptation of Christ” be granted equal air time.

What this annual brouhaha brings home is that whereas the rights of the minority should never be ignored, neither should they automatically take precedence over the rights of the majority. But thanks to the ACLU and America’s elected officials, that’s become more and more the case.

The contempt that arrogant office holders in our country show for the concerns of their constituents is very nearly as great as the contempt that France’s nobility exhibited towards the peasants in the 18th century shortly before the peasants decided that the nobles would not only look better, but cause far less mischief without their heads.

Whether it’s Hillary’s plan for socialized medicine, Dick Durbin’s blind hatred of the U.S. military or George Bush’s cavalier attitude where illegal aliens are concerned, our politicians time and time again remind us that it’s their country to do with as they wish, and that the rest of us are just a bunch of brats who should neither be seen nor heard. Quite obviously, in their vision of the best of all possible worlds, we the people would simply shut up, go to our rooms and, of course, pay our taxes.

He has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times, a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine and has written for the New York Times, TV Guide, Modern Maturity, Emmy, Holiday, American Film, and Sports Illustrated.

For television, he has written for Dragnet, McMillan & Wife, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, Bob Newhart, Family Ties, Dr. Quinn and Diagnosis Murder.

You can learn more about Burt and his latest book, Conservatives Are from Mars (Liberals Are from San Francisco) at his home page. Write Mr. Prelutsky at: