Sue, your knowledge about the background of our forefathers is lacking a bit. The ones that weren’t deists worshipped in a quiet manner, and would find the modern church an abomination. Yes, the Supreme Court has said that, within certain limited circumstances, public displays of religion can be allowed as long as others are given equal treatment, with emphasis on the word equal. But nowhere did they claim that the public school system fell into that catagory, for good reason. In most cases, children are required to go to school, and are thus a captive audience.
I don’t know about Brother D, but if I started a thread called “Christmas in the Schools”, I might not respond to diverginary questions about St.Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and various other holidays that have been brought up here. But that’s just my opinion. 
I think the core issue here is about things with a religious connotation being “forced” upon kids in a public school. Why would the mention and discussion of Halloween, Thanksgiving and St. Patrick’s Day be exempt, or not relevant, to such a discussion? It seems directly related, and I am not the only one curious to know David’s answer to the oft-asked question regarding these other holidays.
Sorry to break away from the topic for a minute, but if anyone is interested in the point brought up by Majormd
Ramadan is calculated by the 354+ day lunar year, so it annually advances 11 to 12 days against the 365.22 day solar year used in the west. There is in fact a major festival upon its completion, so there probably are fun foods associated with that.
Actually, somewhere around 1/3-1/2 of the original colonies were founded by specific religious groups seeking freedom to worship the way they pleased, but who themselves created an environment in which any other manner of worship, or total lack of worship, led to ostracism and exclusion (Maryland excluded).
The largest colony, Virginia, was founded for economic reasons, not religious, and like England, required all citizens to be members of the Anglican church, with attendance at services IIRC at least once a month. No law can dictate what people believe in their hearts, but records from Williamsburg, at least, would seem to indicate that most men felt the need to cleanse their souls somewhat more frequently than their bodies.
When Thomas Jefferson proposed the Bill of Rights, the freedom of religion issue was very contentious; Jefferson largely stood alone in not being appalled at the idea that this right extended to practicing no religion, or atheism. I’m not sure which of several hundred modern churches you feel would be considered an abomination by these men; I suspect most of them would be more disturbed with the overall Godlessness of modern society, but that’s strictly MHO.
Our public schools have evolved to a large degree. Christmas in generally included in the curriculum, but the strictly religious aspects of it are omitted & left to churches. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s, & Memorial Day (glorifying war) are generally included in the curriculum. If someone feels this is wrong, they have several choices:
They can:
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Remove their child from public schools, and enroll them in a private or church-affiliated school, or home school.
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Lobby the school board members to exclude Christmas entirely from the schools. If none are open to doing this, vote for school board candidates who are. If no canditates are sympathetic to your cause, run themself. Even if they are not elected, they will raise awareness and may affect how this topic is presented in the schools.
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Whine on a message that the world doesn’t meet their definition of perfect. Refuse to answer questions that just might point out some internal inconsistencies in their approach to holidays in general.
Whatever.
You know, this is all about what’s going on at one parks & recreation department’s program for pre-schoolers, and extrapolated to public schools. Pre-school programs do not have mandatory attendance; staying home those days & doing soemthing meaningful is another perfectly viable alternative to the situation described in the OP.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
You know as well as I do that if Brother D had put forth a proposition to ban St.Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Veteran’s Day, and various other holidays he would have been dismissed as a fruitcake, so I guess he tried to limit the conversation to Christmas.
Of course, this didn’t work. Sue, melin and others throw in the other holidays and label him a fruitcake anyway. For those of you who need a clue, read the title of this topic.
Now, back to the subject at hand. IMHO, a public school should use it’s limited time and funds to prepare children for the real world. Reading, writing, math, social skills necessary to interact with others who are different, and a realization that, though there will be times that she/he will sometimes be in a minority position, in the long run it is better to try to correct the system than to run from it or give up. “If you don’t like the way the public schools are run, go to a private school!” is simply running away from the problem.
Proposition: Have the school system put all the types of celebrations that could be had into a box, and pick out a set number each year to participate in. The picking could be done 1 or 2 years in advance to give time for preparation. Any objections to this alternative to the annual Christmas/Santa Claus/pagan ritual we now follow? It might lead to a better understanding of other’s beliefs, if done fairly.
I suspect that he chose Christmas as the topic of this discussion because, seeing as how it’s only a few days until Christmas, it’s the one most apparent right now. I also suspect that the Christian connection to Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and the others wasn’t quite as obvious to him, and therefore it didn’t occur to him to be equally bothered by the secular trappings of those religously associated holidays. But that doesn’t make them any less relevant to the discussion.
Simply put, David objected to the presentation of the secular aspects of Christmas. I presume that he would be equally offended by the presentation of the secular aspects of Easter (Easter bunnies, dyed eggs, baby chicks, etc.) Yet, from his failure to respond to Melin’s question, we assume that he has no objections to the presentation of the secular aspects of Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.
Why the inconsistency? Is it because Christmas and Easter represent the cornerstones of Christianity, the birth and resurrection of Christ, the alpha and omega so to speak? That would obviously make them the 800-pound gorillas in this room full of religiously based holidays, and therefore makes them easy targets for offense. The others are mere wallflowers at this party and don’t merit our attention, right?
Or does he truly want to rid the public schools of the opportunity to recognize any aspect, no matter how secular it may be, of all religously based holidays? If so, then you have to consider these other days as well. You can’t single out Christmas or Easter because they’re more convenient.
And as others here have suggested, I suspect that he hasn’t addressed this issue yet because it reveal the hypocrisy of his argument.
Slythe -
The public schools have always included American culture in their curriculum in countless ways. Yes, if they did away with art, music, PE, sports, and concentrated on reading, writing, math, science, & social studies, they might be able to accomplish more in those areas, IF they could hold the interest of the kids. Also, it would take our society back 75-100 years when such diversions were only accessible to the wealthy. You can argue back & forth about whether that’s a good thing or not, but inclusion of holiday themes into art & music classes does a lot to hold kids interests.
I drew a pretty strong parallel between fundamentalists feeling uncomfortable with the inclusion of Halloween in school curricula, and David’s feeling uncomfortable with secular aspects of Christmas being included. The questions raised by Melin, yosemitebabe & others about whether/how David celebrates other holidays ARE germane. Why should Christmas be singled out as the only popular American holiday to be excluded from the schools? Yes, David’s venting about his child’s feeling left out of Christmas started this thread, but were there other kids in the program who felt left out in a Halloween day that David’s child enjoyed? In order to decide how Christmas should be handled in public schools & pre-schools, it IS necessary to look at how all holidays should be observed.
Why is suggesting removing a child from an offensive curriculum running away from an issue? That is what certain religious groups have been told their relief is for years. If you didn’t notice, I also proposed some other concrete ways to try to effect changes to elements of the curriculum you don’t like.
If you’re interested, here are sites that can shed a little light on the subject:
http://www.fac.org/publicat/parents/parents.htm
http://www.freedomforum.org/religion/1998/10/16parentsguidespanish.asp
Student artwork & singing programs ARE allowed.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Gee Slythe, did you get that David’s kid is three and a half, and in a pre-school? The sorts of activities that he was doing are absolutely appropriate to that age level (cutting and pasting, stuff like that). It’s not like they stopped in the middle of parsing sentences or calculating the area of a triangle to talk about the birth of Jesus.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say David’s not answering the question presented because he’s too honest to lie, and doesn’t want to admit that he (probably) let his kid celebrate Halloween, (probably) didn’t complain when they did something for Thanksgiving at school, and has (probably) exchanged a Valentine or two in his lifetime without complaining about Christianity being shoved down his throat in the process.
And don’t kid yourself about Halloween. The school district my kids attend shuts down for that day (makes it a teacher conference day) in order to avoid the issue. The holiday is pagan (with attempts by Christianity to co-opt it), and many religious fundamentalists around the country strongly object to their children “celebrating” it at all. I used to date a guy who had exactly the same reaction to any of the trappings of Halloween at school that David has presented here about Christmas.
Here’s a link to further information about the pagan and cultural history of Yule/Christmas: http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/yule/yulehistory.html , for anyone with a real interest in it.
-Melin
I you looking for a jewish or an atheistic culture in which to raise your kid? Christmas is a Christian holiday. If you are not a Christian, don’t be a hypocrite and just ignore it. On the 4th of July, I don’t care if any Brits are offended. But David B., after all your anti-Christian diatribes in the past, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside to think about all the heart-burn the Christmas Season is giving you. Merry Christmas.
“I am your worst nightmare, a Christian with an attitude.” paraphrased from Eddy Murphy
I was just saying what they said in my sons school. No,there was no Hanukah play,but no christmas one either. It seemed like a winter thingie. I’d be fine if they took xmas out of the schools altogether.
Tho I would’ve loved to have them do a rasta play,complete with fake ganja!
Rysdad
That pretty much says it all.
David, if you want to FIGHT this issue you must expect that you will upset people. My question to you, David,[ hope I have better luck than Melin in getting an answer],if you live in a predominantly Christian area, where do you live?, the majority of school kids are Christian, didn’t you realize this might be an issue when you enrolled your child in that school system? “After the fact” is always harder. You cannot unring a bell, David.
Since your son is only three an a half, I think it would not be so terrible to just take him out of school for this season and give some thought to enrolling him in the type of school that favors your beliefs.
Oh, will you answer how you are Jewish and an atheitst? You must realize that it was YOU that started this thread and therefore have SOME obligation to respond when asked a question.
Y2K, BFD
David:
Yeah, and while yer at it, how 'bout explaining how you can be both a David and a father.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
Lib]qyote]Yeah, and while yer at it, how 'bout explaining how you can be both a David and a father.{/quote]
They are NOT mutually exclusive.
Y2K, BFD
Good grief! Has it occurred to any of you that David B may be doing SOMETHING ELSE TODAY?!?! There’s no rule or law that says he has to moderate this Board EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY. I counted EIGHT message posted between the hours of MIDNIGHT and 8AM Central Time. Do you think it’s possible he was ASLEEP!?!?!?!
I’ve just now logged on today and will be here for only two-and-a-half more hours. I’d better not wait till tomorrow to answer any questions you may have. I may offend some of you.
SHEESH!
>< DARWIN >
__L___L
jab, if you go back and check page one of this thread, you will see that I first directly asked David the question about the other holidays on Friday morning. He has posted SEVEN times to this thread since then, without addressing that issue.
And that’s only from where I directly addressed the question to him. On Thursday I raised the analogy to those other holidays; I believe there are some NINE posts from him since then.
That strikes me as somebody who’s trying to duck the question.
-Melin
Melin
That is correct, Melin. I also strongly suspect that Georege B is not an atheist either.
Y2K, BFD
John John, you can be both a Jew and an atheist. If your mother was Jewish, you are considered a Jew, whether you believe in God or not.
Ah, that would be DAVID B. OOPS
Y2K, BFD
Your “George B” comment was funnier before the correction, John John. I thought you were using humorous understatement. I strongly suspect George B(ush) is not an atheist, too.