‘Tis the season for protests.
A group of evangelical Christians are seeing red over the design of this year's Starbucks holiday cups, not for what they have on them, but for what is missing.
Protesters are upset that the cups lack any symbols marking the Christmas holiday. Past holiday cup designs have featured Christmas trees, reindeer, snowmen, poinsettias and other holiday symbols. This year’s holiday cup is simply red, with the Starbucks logo.
According to a Starbucks press release, this year's holiday cup "features a two-toned ombré design, with a bright poppy color on top that shades into a darker cranberry below."
Jeffery Fields, the vice president of Design & Content, revealed the reason for the minimalist design. “In the past, we have told stories with our holiday cups designs,” said Fields. “This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.”
For a group of evangelical Christians, this is the further cleansing of the Christmas holiday from popular culture, and another battle in the war against Christmas.
In a Facebook video post that has quickly gone viral, evangelist Joshua Feuerstein claims that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their holiday cups, and that Starbucks employees can’t say “Merry Christmas” to customers, due to political correctness run amok. He’s encourage fellow Christians to start a movement, saying that your name is “Merry Christmas” every time you order a drink at Starbucks, and then take a selfie with the Christmas-branded cup and post to social media.
The Facebook video has been seen over 9 million times and the post has received over 125,000 likes.
Across social media, other Christians protested the Starbucks cup.
According to Snopes, the claim that Starbucks is anti-Christian is false.
