Todd Starnes of the Fox News website is incensed — as well he should be — over a decision by a Kentucky school district to censor a children’s production of the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.
If you’ve seen the half-hour cartoon on TV, you know that the most touching moment in the show comes when Linus reads from the Gospel of Luke about what the real meaning of Christmas is.
Apparently, the Grinches in Johnson County, KY, felt that any reading from the Bible isn’t compatible with the spirit of diversity and multiculturalism that the schools are trying to promote.
So they axed the most important part of the production.
And that’s not all, writes Starnes:
The district also ordered other schools to remove all religious references from their upcoming Christmas productions.
At one school, “Silent Night” was replaced with a Christmas version of the “Whip/Nae Nae” song.
Yes, good readers — apparently that is a real thing.
“How do you go from ‘Silent Night’ to the ‘Whip/Nae Nae,’” one distraught grandmother asked me. “We’re not at all happy about it.”
Teachers at W.R. Castle Elementary School were directed to remove the moving scene where Linus shares the true meaning of Christmas by reading from the Gospel of Luke.
Superintendent Tom Salyer confirmed to me that the entire passage was excised from the program after the district received a single complaint.
“We’re not reading that, sir,” Salyer told me. “It disappoints men that we have to do this.”
The superintendent, who said he is a church-going man, said he was simply following the advice of school district attorneys.
He posted this message on the district’s website:
“In accordance with federal laws, our programs will follow appropriate regulations. The U.S. Supreme Court and the 6th Circuit are very clear that public school staff may not endorse any religion when acting in their official capacities and during school activities. However, our district is fully committed to promote the spirit of giving and concern for our fellow citizens that help define the Christmas holiday. With core values such as service, integrity, leadership, and commitment, our staff and students will continue to proudly represent our district as recently demonstrated by our many student successes.”
Allow me to cut through the bureaucratic malarky and interpret the superintendent’s message through the language of Charlie Brown:
“WAH, WAH WAH, WAH, WAH WAH, WAH.”
I’m surprised that the superintendent summoned the courage to write the word “Christmas” in the message.
OK, we get it. Not everyone is a Christian. Now that we have that moronic observation out of the way, can we please have Santa Claus, creches, singing the rousing carols, and “Christmas trees” back?
If we’re so all concerned about making people of other faiths “uncomfortable” or “left out” because they don’t “celebrate” Christmas (oh, but they do. I don’t hear any complaints about getting the day off), why not include them and teach Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Druids, Warlocks, and rock worshippers (not to mention atheists) why exactly we exchange gifts at Christmas time?
It’s called “education” — presumably the purpose of building schools and hiring idiotic school administrators.
Christmas, if you’ve been asleep for the last 75 years or so, has become a very secular holiday. The little religion that is left in observing Christmas is bound up in family and community traditions. Surely there is room in the Constitution for that. And surely, our non-Christian friends and neighbors can understand that.
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