The "controversy" is totally contrived
and is being used by the RepubliCONs as a wedge issue to stir up the (uninformed) base. However, they are hypocrites for attacking Obama for not using the word "Christmas" on the White House Cards when Shrub didn't use it in all 8 eights of his administration -- and Faux Network never said a word over it.
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow