MY SAY: Falling victim to ridiculous claims

IS IT just me or does everyone think we need to beware of victimhood gone mad?

Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton speaks to the media in Sydney, Friday, April 29, 2016. (AAP Image/Joel Carrett) . Picture: JOEL CARRETT

IS IT just me or does everyone think we need to beware of victimhood gone mad?

Yesterday Immigration Minister Peter Dutton called on Australians to "rise up" and defend Christmas against "political correctness gone mad".

The minister was riled by a talkback radio caller who claimed Kedron State High School had replaced the words, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" with "We Wish You A Happy Holiday".

I haven't seen a response from the school so I don't know if it's true or not.

But I can tell you what I know to be true. Christmas is safe in Australia.

We are a Christian nation and that is reflected in every shopping centre, on every TV station, on the radio and in almost every home across the nation. If one school chose to mix their Christmas celebration with the joy of summer holidays, I don't think we are at risk of cancelling Jesus's birthday.

You never hear politicians calling on Australians to rise up against the rampant commercialisation of the birth of our Lord and saviour.

That kind of blasphemy never hurt anyone apparently.

I think Australians need to be less sensitive to perceived slights. And it's not just about creeping secularism, it's about any minority group looking to tell their story.

There are people who think same-sex relationships are an attack on the sanctity of marriage.

I am sent a lot of material from men who feel conversation about domestic or sexual violence is targeting them unfairly.

There are some who think migrants will steal their jobs and others claim so-called reverse racism has resulted in some sort of black privilege in this country.

The loudest voices in the world at the moment are the ones claiming nobody lets them speak.

Trust me, you're speaking. I can barely hear anything else for the din.

This week I saw a Facebook post of a bacon sandwich with the title, 'Dare you to like and share it', as if bacon sandwiches are the next thing to fall after Christmas.

Last year when a woman was run off the road on the Gold Coast and bludgeoned to death by her partner, at the radio station we were inundated with calls and emails from men claiming every ten days a man in Australia is lost to domestic homicide.

It was like going to a rally for cancer victims and claiming everyone should stop snivelling and worry about your heart disease instead.

It's a weird kind of victimhood. A fight to be more maligned and downtrodden than the maligned and downtrodden.

This Christmas, I say don't rise up against anyone.

Be happy you live in a country where freedom is a way of life.

Where people can support each others' beliefs without the need to take offence.

And where baby Jesus is as safe as a church.