Their ranks, however, are thankfully, much thinner than they were when I was growing up in the 1950s.

It is a fact that the United States is a country in which a large majority of people profess one form or another of the Christian faith. What the hucksters of the religious right mean by calling America a "Christian nation" is, however, something quite different.

They believe that Christianity ought to have a quasi-official status as America's preferred religion and that the rights of minorities, including atheists, agnostics, and believers in non-Christian religions, may be ignored with impunity.

One of the most repellent examples of this kind of thinking appears in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in one of the so-called "Ten Commandments" cases. The Court was wrong to order the removal of Ten Commandments plaques from courthouses, Scalia wrote, because the nation's historical practices clearly indicate that the Constitution permits "disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists."

That is precisely what the Constitution does not allow. It has nothing to say about God, gods, or any form of belief or nonbelief--apart from its prohibition, in Article 6, against any religious test for public office, and the First Amendment's declaration that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

If the founders had wanted to establish a "Christian nation"--as opposed to a nation in which everyone possessed the freedom to believe or not to believe in any type of religion--they would have ended the First Amendment with "free exercise thereof--as long as the faithful worship one Christian God."

Or, as those who now wish to avoid offending Jews say, "Judaeo-Christian God." (The last formulation conveniently ignores the fact--hardly a minor point--that observant Jews do not believe that Jesus was either God or the Messiah foretold in Jewish prophecy.)

Customs like "swearing on the Bible" are just that--customs with no legal status. The whole nonsensical dispute over whether a newly-elected Muslim Congressman may use the Koran rather than the Bible to be sworn in is based on the misapprehension that the law requires special respect for Christianity. Excuse me, Judaeo-Christianity.

I would prefer to see elected officials take their oaths on the Constitution rather than any sacred book. There is, I suppose, about as much chance of that as there is of radio stations putting an end to the headache-inducing "all Christmas music, all the time" format that they adopt at this time of year.

Whether such commercial practices support the notion of America as a Christian nation is a matter of opinion. Are people moved to worship by such traditional Christian songs as "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," "Frosty the Snowman," and "I'll Have a Blue Christmas Without You"?

As we say in New York--where we even respect the rights of polytheists--Happy Holidays.