‘Tis the season. ‘Tis the season the Christmas Crusaders wage their annual War on Christmas. However, their wrath is not being taken out on cashiers saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” This year’s enemy is Starbucks. The coffee giant recently released its simple, two-toned red holiday cup, which in years past donned symbols of the season. But it turns out, “Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus,” as ranted by former pastor Joshua Feuerstein in a widely viewed anti-Starbucks Facebook video.

As ridiculous as Feuerstein’s video is as well as the supporters who went on to tell Starbucks employees that their names were “Merry Christmas,” I’m not here to comment on Cup-Gate. In fact, I have my own war to wage. We need to put an end to using “-gate” as a suffix to any trivial scandal, controversy, faux pas and gaffe.

The suffix “-gate” derives from the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. Watergate was a major and unprecedented political scandal involving a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Nipplegate was when Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed by Justin Timberlake for a half second during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show.

Watergate led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Deflategate led to New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady almost being suspended for four games.

Nixon wasn’t the only politician to resign due to scandal. In 2011, Congressman Anthony Weiner (aka “Carlos Danger”) ultimately resigned after he was caught sexting and sending explicit sexual material by cell phone to multiple women, which the media automatically called Weinergate. Looks like the New York Times had a couple “Deep Throats” of their very own. Woodward and Bernstein would be so proud.

There is actually a Wikipedia page listing many of the “-gates” throughout the years. My personal favorite is “Hairgate” (1993), which refers to a $200 haircut given to President Bill Clinton on Air Force One.

I get it. Whether we like to admit it or not, Americans do love a good scandal. But if Shonda Rhimes wouldn’t even touch the story, there’s a problem. However, by using the –gate suffix all of the time, it trivializes the circumstances of actual controversies that require more than a little thought. It makes stories that should be relegated to Us Weekly seem like actual news while making the stories that need to be shared insignificant.