Hallmark Is Takg the Gay Out of Christmas Carols

Contents:

• HALLMARK REPLAC THE WORD 'GAY' ON DECK THE HALLS HOLIDAY RATN
• HALLMARK ORNAMENT HAS ‘DECK THE HALLS’ – WHOUT THE GAY APPAREL
• HALLMARK UNR FIRE FOR REMOVG 'GAY' FROM 'DECK THE HALLS' CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT
• IT'S "GAY" IN "DECK THE HALLS" CROSSWORD CLUE
• HALLMARK IS TAKG THE GAY OUT OF CHRISTMAS CAROLS
• "GAY APPAREL" STRIPPED OM CHRISTMAS CAROL, BUT QUICKLY RE-DONNED
• HALLMARK IS RIGHT ABOUT THE WORD GAY
• HALLMARK NIX ‘GAY’ OM CHRISTMAS ROL LYRIC ON ORNAMENT

HALLMARK REPLAC THE WORD 'GAY' ON DECK THE HALLS HOLIDAY RATN

Hallmark—“when you re enough to send the very bt”—has ed a stir by takg the “gay” out of Christmas.

” The pany dched the tradnal, “Don we now our gay apparel, ” bee many ntexts, gay means ‘homosexual, ’ replacg wh “Don we now our fun apparel, ” which Hallmark felt would be more acceptable to a general dience that clus pdish adults, imprsnable children, and fundamentalists. Acrdg to the Los Angel Tim, Hallmark ially rpond to crics of this move by argug that the words “gay apparel” were not necsarily thentic to beg wh, but rather translatns om a Gaelic origal, so they uld be replaced by other, synonymo words.

The pany sisted that, sce “gay” today means somethg different om what meant the neteenth century, that “uld leave our tent open to misterpretatn. ” In other words, even though the Supreme Court says same-sex marriage is nstutnal, Hallmark didn’t want to be seen by nservative ctomers as endorsg a gay agenda. The joke that the pany tried to expla away s attempt to take the “gay” out of Christmas by referrg to a Gaelic origal?

HALLMARK ORNAMENT HAS ‘DECK THE HALLS’ – WHOUT THE GAY APPAREL

In 1862 the Sttish poet Thomas Oliphant took the tune of the Welsh Nos Galan, a New Year’s song that had nothg to do wh Christmas, boughs of holly, or any kd of clothg, gay or otherwise, and put his own words to , creatg what would then bee one of the most popular Christmas rols.

When Oliphant wrote “don we now our gay apparel” he surely meant somethg like ‘brightly lored, ftive’ clothg.

But gay had other meangs too. As early as Chcer’s day, gay uld mean ‘lasciv, ’ and by the sixteenth century uld refer to someone who was dissolute, wanton, flamboyant, or unhibed. By the neteenth century gay uld serve as a phemism for prostutn.

HALLMARK UNR FIRE FOR REMOVG 'GAY' FROM 'DECK THE HALLS' CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT

None of the rnchy or negative nuanc stopped Oliphant om g gay “Deck the Halls. By the 1930s the Uned Stat, gay also began to acquire a slang sense referrg to homosexualy.

Neteenth-century children might snicker thkg gay referred to libert or prostut, but they were still allowed to sg about “gay apparel. Gog gay: In “Brgg Up Baby” (1938), Cary Grant, playg a nerdy archeologist, los his patience as he explas why after a long seri of mishaps he’s wearg a woman’s drsg gown: “I jt went gay, all of a sudn. The OED c this as an example of an early homosexual reference for the term, though also c earlier by Gert Ste and Noel Coward dated 1922 and 1929, rpectively.

IT'S "GAY" IN "DECK THE HALLS" CROSSWORD CLUE

Hallmark is not the first to take gay out of “Deck the Halls.

HALLMARK IS TAKG THE GAY OUT OF CHRISTMAS CAROLS

” An alternative versn of “Don we now our gay apparel” has been circulatn for some time: “Fill the mead-cup, dra the barrel” (John Hullah, The Song Book, 1884).

But apparently ’s more acceptable today to refer explicly to dnkenns a rol often sung by children than is to risk implyg homosexualy.

"GAY APPAREL" STRIPPED OM CHRISTMAS CAROL, BUT QUICKLY RE-DONNED

Hallmark’s actn also suggts that gay has bee so associated wh homosexualy that n no longer reta s earlier sense of ‘bright or ftive. Hallmark shunned gay bee of s sexual nnotatn.

HALLMARK IS RIGHT ABOUT THE WORD GAY

But the fact that gay has been embraced recent years both by the gay muny and by English speakers general as a posive, non-taboo synonym for homosexual mak even more likely for the word’s other primary sense, ‘bright, ftive, ’ to fall to dise. Wh the transformatn of a negative term for homosexual to a posive one, we’re ls likely to ll clothg gay (Don we now our gay apparel), or to e the word as a synonym for ‘happy’ (Dpe all this ra, I still feel kd of gay), for fear of beg misunrstood, or unrstood only too well by the middle school set.

HALLMARK NIX ‘GAY’ OM CHRISTMAS ROL LYRIC ON ORNAMENT

Compoundg gay avoidance is s latt slang transformatn: llg somethg, or someone, gay n signal 'that's unol.