Well, I routinely say "Merry Christmas" this time of year, and I'm certainly not pushing religion. In particular, I'm not pushing a religion I disagree with. For me, it has a purely secular meaning. I guess if you want to argue that it's pushing religion just to say "Merry Christmas," I'm willing to listen to what you have to say. But I know for a fact that it's not always pushing religion.
However, I certainly agree with your skepticism about the claim that there are people trying to ban use of the phrase.
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate
...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist