| Author | Message | ||
     cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 2883 Registered: 8-2003 |
While we're at it, is that a Dickins Village downtown. BURN IT NOW! Danny Westneat / Seattle Times staff columnist Banning Tiny Tim? Humbug! In Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," Tiny Tim delivers one of the famed lines in literature: "God bless us, every one!" Along with "Bah, humbug," it's the story's signature. There's the Christmas setting along with some allusions to Christian ideals, but Tiny Tim's blessing is the tale's most overt reference to religion. Yet that was too much for Lake Washington High School in Kirkland. Students were to see a staging of Dickens' story on Dec. 17, but the principal has canceled it, in part because it raised the issue of religion in the public schools. Ah, it's that special time of year, when the spirit of the season is more about offending no one than celebrating anything. Schools and libraries ban Christmas trees. Holiday concerts replace Handel's "Messiah" with bland numbers such as "Frosty the Snowman." This year the controversy has boiled over in New Jersey, where a school banned religious carols. In Denver, people were barred from singing hymns in a parade. And in Italy, a teacher told Muslim students to replace the word "Jesus" with "virtue" if it helped them sing a Christmas carol. The motivation is always well-meaning: to keep religion from distressing anyone in the diverse public square. As a secularist and agnostic who doesn't subscribe to any particular religious doctrine, it's a goal I support. But even a lifelong doubter like me can see that something crucial is being lost, especially in the schools. If kids can't see a Charles Dickens play, hasn't the cause of separating church and state gone too far? Dickens said "A Christmas Carol" was nothing more than a "ghostly little book." With its apparitions of hope and death, it's more supernatural morality tale than religious dogma. He hated the institution of his Christian faith, the Church of England. He's considered the father of the modern secular Christmas, in which many of us celebrate with friends and family instead of attending a church service. Yes, the work has Christian themes. So what? The students can handle it. They might even learn something — about Christianity, or redemption. Or about good storytelling. Banning "A Christmas Carol" because it says too much about religion is like banning "A Catcher in the Rye" because it says too much about adolescence. And that goes for much of the rest of this seasonal controversy. We fall all over ourselves to keep religion from the schools. Yet a major gap in my public education was the lack of religion in the schools. I learned a lot about math and science and literature, and literally nothing about the belief systems of billions of the world's people — an educational hole as stunning as if they'd decided not to teach, say, world history. The schools say they walk a fine line. Religious holidays can be taught, not observed. If Charles Dickens is over that line, then I don't have much faith today's kids are learning any more about religion than I did. | ||
| Ily Citizen Username: Ily Post Number: 140 Registered: 7-2004  |
'We advertise ourselves as a community that embraces "diversity", yet we ban Christmas music' overtaxdalready is right, the ban is ludicrous. It's also ignorant and shows religious intolerance. Can someone post the names of the people responsible? I'd like to remember them come election time. | ||
| ajc Citizen Username: Ajc Post Number: 3307 Registered: 9-2001 |
Embarrassed? Damn right I’m humiliated! I’ll repeat what I posted elsewhere on MOL…. “IMO, what has happened is disgusting, and absolutely nauseating. I want to throw up. I never thought I’d live long enough to say I’m embarrassed to live in Maplewood. To think that this community would allow all traditional religious music to be banned in our schools is beyond my comprehension.” I was really taken back when I arrived at the BOE meeting Monday night to discover how few people showed up in protest. It appears most of our community, like most Molers, are mostly all talk and little or no action. IMHO, to allow others to sanitize religious expression in our public school system will only lead to more sanitation in other areas of our community. The next thing you know these creeps in town will demand the town stops decorating the Christmas Tree in Ricalton Square. What kind of people live here, and who do they elect to run our institutions in this community? Wimps… Embarrassed? Damn right!!!! | ||
| ML Citizen Username: Ml1 Post Number: 2113 Registered: 5-2002  |
Religion has not been "banned" from schools. Our school district continues to celebrate diversity by teaching children about the traditions of others. My kids' classes this year are learning about Channukah, Christmas, and Ramadan. I think the complete banning of Christmas songs, apparently even in purely instrumental versions, is going overboard, but to suggest that we're banning religion from our schools is not correct. | ||
| mem Citizen Username: Mem Post Number: 4333 Registered: 5-2001  |
ajc, Haven't you figured out yet that the BOE we have here is like a dictatorship? I was told last night that they are completely under horrorshack's thumb. | ||
| Straw's world Citizen Username: Strawberry Post Number: 4093 Registered: 10-2001 |
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| Robert Livingston Citizen Username: Rob_livingston Post Number: 550 Registered: 7-2004 |
Straw: that's actually pretty funny. ajc: How does your humiliation manifest itself? When you're shopping somewhere, are you afraid to open your wallet for fear that someone might see your address on your driver's license? Do you wear a fake beard when travelling to adjacent towns? Are you currently telling eveyone you're from Shelbyville (the way most Americans overseas tell everyone they're from Canada)? | ||
| shh Citizen Username: Shh Post Number: 1911 Registered: 5-2001 |
I wonder if Rob's actually SEEN Art's beard?  | ||
| Local_1_crew Citizen Username: Local_1_crew Post Number: 307 Registered: 3-2004 |
i celebrate chanukah and i find places that just assume everyone listens to christmas carols and celebrates christmas truly offensive. People who are not christian really discover during this time of year how all the talk of cultural diversity in this country is just alot of lip service. | ||
| notehead Citizen Username: Notehead Post Number: 1784 Registered: 5-2001  |
Embarrassed? Why would any of us be embarrassed? Why would the school board's well-intended stupidity be a reflection of me or you? People who jump to that sort of conclusion don't deserve my concern, or yours. | ||
| Maple Man Citizen Username: Mapleman Post Number: 473 Registered: 6-2004  |
These stories are part of the predictable cycle of "outrages" that are staples of talk radio and cable news. Is there ever a Christmas season without indignant commentators complaining about this town that removed its Nativity scene or that town that won't allow kids to sing about the Baby Jesus? It's part of the continual pandering to the paranoia of religious people, who somehow think religion is going to be driven underground in the U.S. If we look around ourselves, we have to admit that just isn't so. The number of openly pious people in public life isn't diminishing, but talk radio and Fox News would like us to believe religion is on the run. It's just Maplewood's turn to be one of the examples they use to bash "political correctness run amok." This too shall pass. | ||
| overtaxdalready Citizen Username: Overtaxdalready Post Number: 296 Registered: 6-2001 |
"Political Correctness run amok" deserves to be bashed. Hopefully, that will never pass. | ||
| Maple Man Citizen Username: Mapleman Post Number: 474 Registered: 6-2004 |
let me know when political correctness comes within even 1/10 of the ubiquity of Christmas celebrations in Maplewood in particular, and the U.S. in general. until then, the words "running amok" don't really apply here. | ||
| overtaxdalready Citizen Username: Overtaxdalready Post Number: 297 Registered: 6-2001 |
Whatever. The bottom line is that the current BOE-sponsored idiocy deserves to be bashed. | ||
| Maple Man Citizen Username: Mapleman Post Number: 475 Registered: 6-2004 |
sure, by people in town. But talking heads are just using Maplewood this year as their example of how religion is under "assault." If it wasn't us it would be some other town. Next year it will be somebody else. I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction - you can expect this same story again next year, with slight variations, in different towns. And the year after that, and so on, forever. It gives the commentators a chance to harrumph about something, and a chance for callers to work up a good head of steam and call in and rant. All for something that essentially is meaningless. Despite these occasional flaps over the nativity scenes and the carols, Christmas is absolutely inescapable at this time of year. | ||
| mem Citizen Username: Mem Post Number: 4341 Registered: 5-2001 |
I am not religious, but I certainly recognize that the vast majority of my fellow citizens are christian, and I am not bigoted about it or offended by it. Deal with it. Majority usually rules in democracies, in this case it didn't, that's why it makes the news. | ||
| Maple Man Citizen Username: Mapleman Post Number: 476 Registered: 6-2004 |
actually mem, the reason we live in a republic and not a democracy is at least in part so that the majority won't run roughshod over the rights of the minority. | ||
| mjc Citizen Username: Mjc Post Number: 61 Registered: 10-2004 |
Not embarrassed for a minute. As posted elsewhere about the school music issue: Personally, I have some reservations about the way this policy was acted on this year (AFTER rehearsals were well underway, and maybe without careful thought about performance vs. celebration), but I don't think the flap reflects badly on M/SO. It's just us again, putting up and shooting down all shades of opinion. As the WNYC spot says about New York, we "live together in peace and enjoy the benefits of democracy." What's to be embarrassed or ashamed about? | ||
| mem Citizen Username: Mem Post Number: 4345 Registered: 5-2001 |
Roughshod? Christmas has been practiced in America for almost 500 years. When all of a sudden did it get roughshod? | ||
| Maple Man Citizen Username: Mapleman Post Number: 477 Registered: 6-2004 |
I was referring generally to the rights of minorities vs. majorities, not specifically to Christmas. I don't believe we need a strict ban on all Christmas music in our schools. Still, if there are parents who would like public school to be the one place that's free of religious material at Christmas, at least I can understand their concerns. My solution would not likely have been an all out ban, but I wouldn't tell such parents to just "deal with it," and leave it at that. |
