The War On Christmas was first Noticed back in the 1990s, but the War On Easter has developed much more recently. Specifically, I first reported the surreptitious substitution of something called the “Spring Bunny” for the Easter Bunny as recently as 2010. Now the darn thing is hopping around everywhere—part of the mounting attack on the Historic American Nation and its symbols.
Googling the history of the “War On Easter” I find that, as usual, people have either denied that it exists [The war on Easter, by Alan Rudnick, Baptist News Network, March 29, 2013] or have said that it should so exist: Is there a war on Easter? Maybe there should be., by Alexandra Petri, Washington Post, March 28, 2013.
Alexandra Petri’s column didn’t really want to ban Easter, she was just going on and on about how there’s no logical connection between the Easter Bunny, chocolate eggs, and the Resurrection.
She did, however, include a genuine War On Easter incident:
Done correctly, Easter is as completely non-secular as they come. It’s like Christmas turned up to 11, with death and resurrection and Fundamental Beliefs thrown into the mix. But these days it’s a muddle. At the Madison school, Principal Lydia Davenport told WHNT news, “Kids love the bunny, and we just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion; a bunny is a bunny and a rabbit is a rabbit.”
Wait, the Easter bunny relates to religion? How? Please, explain this!
Maybe it’s time we just admitted it’s the Baffling Secular Rabbit Of Spring and stopped trying to link the two. Shun the peeps. Shun the chocolate. Take Easter out of the Easter Bunny. It couldn’t make it any worse. Maybe the only thing sillier than removing it is having it there in the first place. [Link in original].
The story Petri was linking to [Madison [Alabama] School Modifies Student Easter Egg Hunt, Citing ‘Religious Diversity’ Conflicts, March 19, 2013] was about Christophobia in schools—children must be protected from hearing the name of Easter, and anyone who heard that there was such a thing as Easter would be having their rights infringed.
In The Federalist, Mollie Hemingway noted the lack of cultural support for Easter, noting that the only Easter card in one card store that mentions religion at all makes light of Judas: “Judas, Worst Friend Ever”[The Easter Bunny’s War On Easter Is Going Too Far, by Mollie Hemingway, March 23, 2016].
The entirety of my @paper_source store's religious cards offered for Easter was this one, making light of Judas. pic.twitter.com/E9sRu1Ly3F
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) March 21, 2016
But there sure seems to be a lot of support for the “Spring Bunny”—when you Google “spring bunny” you get thousands of local results where children are going to Spring Egg Hunts in places like Walnut Creek, and Berkeley in California.
Save the date for April 8th. See all the details for this upcoming local event on Patch. https://t.co/AwMvYTwsSZ
— WalnutCreekPatch (@WCPatch) April 2, 2023
Today is the day! We can't wait to see you at Eggstravaganza! Happening now until 5 pm with thousands of eggs to fill your baskets, face painting, games, the Spring bunny, and plenty of sunshine and fresh air. pic.twitter.com/vHzte8RRgK
— The Living Planet (@LivingPlanetUT) April 8, 2023
Eggs & candy? Count us in! Thank you to all who attended our Spring Egg Hunt! Don’t forget to join us on April 23 for our Spring Festival from 3-6 PM on the beach by the Jetty. pic.twitter.com/bTGTLR439V
— Bal Harbour Gov't (@BalHarbourGov) April 8, 2023
So once again, as with the War On Christmas, the War On Thanksgiving, and even the War on Halloween, it’s actually all part of the War on the Historic American Nation—people whose rights schoolteachers don’t worry about infringing.
And it’s winning because it’s not being called out.
At VDARE.com we know that symbols are important. And while the Easter Bunny may seem a silly kind of symbol, we love him for the enemies he’s made, and will continue to speak up for him in face of this interloping “Spring Bunny” imposter.
Happy Easter From VDARE.com!
Earlier Easter Columns
(“By a happy coincidence, Easter Sunday falls this year on the thirty-fifth anniversary of Enoch Powell's great speech on immigration—given in Birmingham on April 20, 1968. This neatly intertwines the themes of spiritual and national death and resurrection in a way that might have pleased Powell, who had been a fierce atheist as a young man and whose equally fierce if unorthodox Anglicanism in later life was explicitly related to his appreciation of the English Church as an expression of the English nation.")
And perhaps our most serious statement:
