The irony of the new wave of men rallying behind the Christian banner is not lost at the height of the Christian celebration. Soldiers of Christ. In a society where the worst insult for a man is to be asked if he has lace on his drawers or called some derogatory term hung on the female part of the human race - like whore, prostitute, or more coarse ones like pussy, cunt, or son of a bitch. A man must not be equated to a woman. Somehow that makes him less of a man.

It's bad enough that when men take on airs of compassion or peace keeping, the patriarchs manage to make a war to test men's virility. Get them when they are young. In 1910 Congress authorized the scouting movement with the overriding purpose to make men. In the words of the 1914 promoter, Daniel Carter Beard, "The hardships and privations of pioneer life which did so much to develop sterling manhood are now but a legend in history, and we must depend upon the Boy Scout Movement to produce the MEN of the future."

Theodore Roosevelt's criticism of Woodrow Wilson for failing to jump quickly into WWI was not about foreign policy but about manhood. Teddy charged that Wilson "had done more to emasculate American manhood and weaken its fiber than anyone else I can think of."

For a few decades we settled back and searched for peace - leaders began to exhibit feminine characteristics. They negotiated for peace. Perish the thought. So in efforts to take back their "manhood" Promise Keepers and some hundred white racist hate groups rally under the Christian banner and wave the bible.

Christ, whose birth a small part of the world glorifies on December 25, was the least manly man to flaunt before men. From the evidence in the Bible they wave, Christ was never virile, gallant, staunch, or valorous. The only violence was overturning tables of money lenders in the Temple.