Jacob Golomb ’16

It’s that time of year; stores are decorated for the season and shoppers are wished “happy holidays.” Recently, the shockingly controversial Starbucks holiday cup design has been trending. During the holidays, Starbucks has a tradition of changing its cups to have Christmas colors and seasonal designs ranging from snowflakes to ornaments. This year, the company made the surprisingly sacrilegious decision to simply make the cups red and green with no other Christmas references.

Despite the clear intention of Starbucks to be inclusive regarding the religious backgrounds of its customers, some have declared that the new cup design means Starbucks is launching a “War on Christmas.” One former pastor, Joshua Feuerstein, has gone viral, proclaiming that Starbucks “hates Jesus.”

The vocal opponents of the new cup design ignore the joyous aspects of the holidays and cry oppression instead of appreciating inclusion. Starbucks has no obligation to gear its cup design toward the majority religious group. In fact, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is Jewish.