Religious Tolerance on the Runway

Dear American Airlines,

I would like to commend the flight attendant who announced "Welcome to Los Angeles and Happy Holidays" when our full plane, flight 427 from Austin, landed at LAX tonight. It's nice that a professional service person in the U.S. recognizes that we live in a multi-cultural, multi-confessional society.

And to the loud lady in seat 6B, accompanying a girls soccer team, apart from the fact that you should definitely find a better hairdresser or stop pretending you're blonde, because yours is a color not found in nature, listen up: I heard your nasty comment about "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas." I also heard that, when your companion in 6A asked you what you had said, you didn't have the guts to explain yourself, but just muttered "oh, nothing." Look, you cowardly bigot: last time I read the Constitution, the First Amendment included the so-called anti-establishment clause. In other words, your religion doesn't legally have standing above others, or above the absence thereof. This plane probably contained Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians (or people like you who pretend to be Christians), and at least one atheist (that would be the guy in 6F, me). The American Airlines flight attendant welcome respected them all by wishing "happy holidays." Your ignorant comment did not.

You should be a role model to the teenage girls you accompanied. Instead, you're a disgrace to your own country's Founding Fathers.

There.