Politically Correct or Common Courtesy

A fellow Twitterer and I had a bit of a discussion the other day regarding the reasoning behind Spring Break now being referred to as Spring Break and no longer being called Easter Break.

SheTweeted:
Whatever happened to "Easter Vacation"..*sigh* Remember that? Now it's "Spring Break".God forbid we insult somebody :(
And GOD forbid we say "Christmas Vacation" now it's Winter Holiday, or Winter Break.. ughhhhhhhhh
My reply:
it doesn't happen at "easter" anymore
I think our world has evolved enough that we no longer need to plan our schedules around the Christian calendar.
She:No, but sometimes tradition is tradition, history etc.This pc bullshit needs to stop (in my honest opinion).
Me: Who's tradition? Christian tradition? What about Jewish holidays or Muslim or Wiccan? Should all religions be granted as school/work holidays for Everyone?

At this point we just decided to agree to disagree and both go out and run our errands.

So why is one person's tradition more important than another's? This can be looked at two ways. First - If all the Christians jumped off a bridge should everyone else do it too? (remember your parents telling you that one?) Second - Have you never said to someone "If I do it for you I will have to do it for everyone"? So if we give school/work holidays to Christian's should we not respect ALL religious holidays no matter the denomination? We would be home evey single day of the year.

And please do not give me this crap about us being a Christian nation. No we are not. We are a nation of many many religions and faiths and even non-religions and non-faiths. And that is exactly how our forefathers wanted it.

"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

I know some people have gotten their knickers in a bunch because they are chastised for saying Merry Christmas and asked to say Happy Holidays instead. Is that being PC or is that a common courtesy. Should you not be courteous to others and mindful and respectful of their traditions and celebrations.

To me it all reverts back to my favorite thing - logic.

Think about this with an open and completely unbiased mind.

On YOUR birthday, do you wish others a Happy Birthday? It is your Birthday, you are celebrating it as YOUR day ergo others say to you Happy Birthday.

Why then would you wish someone Merry Christmas or Happy Hanakuh (I know it's wrong) or Eid Mubarach if they don't celebrate that particular holiday?

Should we then ask someone what, if anything they are celebrating at that time of the year and then subsequently wish them that? You could if you were very sincere about your wish, heck if you were that sincere about your gesture, this wouldn't be an issue for you, you would KNOW what the other person celebrates already. But we as a race as a whole are lazy and insincere, therefore we have chosen to wish a Happy Holiday in general, whatever it is you happen to celebrate I hope you enjoy it. Why is that so hard and so offensive to some?

Is it being Politically Correct to be mindful of someone's feelings? When your parents taught you manners were they teaching you to be politically correct or were they simply teaching you common courtesy. Remember this? If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. That is what I think of with politically correctness.

Is it really a burden on you to refer to someone as African American instead of a derrogatory term? How about Latino or Hispanic instead of just "Mexican". This same Twitterer in an earlier conversation we had (she is a native Californian) proclaimed her ignorance in the fact that someone that is Hispanic is not necessarily Mexican but someone of Spanish heritage. Whether she never bothered to find out, or never had occasion to, I don't know. I appreciate that she was open to the revelation and I hope she embraces it.

In that same vein I hope one day everyone can embrace each other's differences. It is what makes us all who we are. How boring we would be to all be the same (unless you were each like me).