Although Fox News pretended its presentation of a live Nativity scene on Fox & Friends last week was just a nice way to celebrate the Christmas season, it was soon clear that there was a political agenda behind the presentation: to promote Christianity in the public square. In case you missed the message the first time, Fox & Friends’ Gretchen Carlson visited The O’Reilly Factor that night (12/6/12) and urged “folks” “all across America” to go out and enact live Nativity scenes of their own - on public property.

As usual, Carlson and Bill O’Reilly cloaked their aggressive Christianity behind a veil of victimhood. O’Reilly announced at the beginning of the segment, “There’s an effort by some secular progressives to diminish the federal holiday of Christmas… Is there a growing anti-Christian bias in America?”

Calling it a “freedom of speech issue in many areas,” O’Reilly said, “All I know is, Carlson, that every day I come to work and I see attacks on Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Carlson asked, “What will my children be fighting for?  …We already, as I have told you before, I kind of have to say, ‘Hey, look, way in the back seat, way off beyond in the yonder, you can see Baby Jesus,’ maybe even if there is a Nativity scene anywhere. This is what we’re doing now.”

O’Reilly complained that because of “a lack of leadership in the Christian communities in America, generally speaking,” he is forced to “lead this campaign.”

“I’m leading it, too,” Carlson piped up. She reported some “good news:” “As long as you have an unattended (sic) Nativity Scene, which means a live Nativity Scene, you can have it.” I believe what Carlson meant is that an attended Nativity Scene, i.e. a live one, is permissible.

She issued her marching orders: “So folks in your towns all across America, get (unintelligible) people out there.”

O’Reilly said, “We need the live people out there.”

In other words, O’Reilly and Carlson don’t just have opinions on public Christmas displays, they’re using Fox News to activate for more of them.