Parents and citizens in York County have a blog at their web site to monitor the County’s compliance with the School Board-approved changes to policy. Last year some schools were culturally cleansed of Christmas. The change in policy is to make sure that Christmas is observed as a Holiday in public schools.
You can see the latest status reports at http://blog.ycchh.org
This is a very innovative way to spread the word in near real time on any policy issue. Well done York County folks!
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(comments below)
I’m just happy that it’s no longer inappropriate to shove Christmas down Jews’ throats. They deserve it – what with the christ killing and everything.
But on a serious note:
Yay blogging!
Anon if you don’t like Christmas being an official U.S. and Virginia holiday then work to change it through the legislatures.
I have something of a disconnect here. I just don’t quite understand where the true problem lay.
First and foremost, I’m all for our young students expressing themselves. If they want to walk from class to class singing The Hallelujah Chorus, more power to them. They should even be allowed to have a Christmas tree on their desk, just so long as it doesn’t get in the way of his/her math test. Freedom to express your opinion is a great thing, and it should apply to the schools as long as no children are being injured or discriminated against. And one child celebrating a holiday is not discriminating against another child.
The problem occurs (doesn’t it?) when a teacher or administrator endorses one “winter holiday” over the others. That’s when children are excluded and singled out because they have different beliefs.
And from what I could read on the link you provided, that’s exactly what your buds in York County want. And if the Your Co. school system’s population is 100% Christian Protestant, then they still wouldn’t be discriminating against anyone. But is it? I’ve never been to York County. Is it?
Recognizing an official holiday isn’t discrimination.
Recognizing traditional and historical holidays that unite Virginians is an SOL. (95% of the people celebrate Christmas in one form or another even though only 85% are Christian).
Not recognizing the official holiday and forbidding the mention of the word, every symbol so associated with the holiday and even the colors red and green is cultural cleansing of Christianity from public schools. That is what happened in some schools in York County last year.
The parents and citizens are working today to teach the holidays – as the schools do every other holiday (except Lee-Jackson Day) – and that includes the traditional songs etc. and historical references to why it is a holiday.
It does NOT include proselytizing.
I would agree a school should not in any way hinder the polite, non-discriminatory actions of its students to celebrate their faith and family traditions. Just so long as it did not interfere with the other student’s learning.
What should not happen, in my opinion, is the school itself deciding to give greater weight to one faith’s beliefs as opposed to others.
It’s not polite. It’s not good education in today’s modern global society. And most importantly it’s not being a good Christian.
jamie – well stated!
Anyone is free to express their belief to whoever want to listen. We can walk away anytime we want.
but No one should have the right to express their beliefs to those who cannot walk away any time they’ve had enough.
And when we have the Government and Schools get into the business of expressing religious beliefs to young people who cannot do anything other than sit and listen… I’m pretty sure that my God would frown on this.
He’s telling me that being a good Christian means accepting others and not forcing one’s own beliefs on others via the Government or Schools.
I love the way that some portray the “restrictions” …
“Well I can’t put up a religious symbol”… and then you ask “why not” I see them in other folks yards and at churches all over the place …and he sez ” No.. I mean I want to put it up at the Courthouse and at the school my kids go to”.
well.. why would you want to do that since there are others who don’t believe like you do?
“because I believe in the only religion that God approves of”
QED
Jamie and Larry: You miss the point. The issue isn’t individual kids celebrating their religion.
It is about public schools teaching the meaning of historical and traditional U.S. and Virginia holidays. It is part of the SOLs and the body of knowledge of any educated Virginian.
The schools aren’t teaching religion or favoring religion when they observe legal holidays.
To not teach the about one holiday (or two – Lee-Jackson Day) amounts to educational negligence born of astonishing viewpoint prejudice.
I’m 10 years removed from the Virginia Public School System, but I do distinctly remember learning about Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and any days designated to observe their contributions along with the historical significance of the Christmas holiday (along with its pagan beginnings).
And a school “observes” a holiday by being closed. Last time I looked, there was a rather lengthy Winter Holiday here in Virginia that would be great for observing Christmas. Oddly, though, Hannakuh doesn’t always fall under the same holiday.
The only “astonishing” thing about the situation in York County is that the “Christians” there can’t be accepting enough of the other viewpoints in our society that they would be angry when school officials don’t want to single those children out for ridicule.
Jamie: Perhaps you were sleeping in those public schools.
Public schools have assemblies and programs for Labor Day, Columbus Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, MLK Day, Presidents’ Day and Memorial Day. They teach about 4th of July. They recognize Valentine’s Day and St Patrick’s Day and Cinqo de Mayo.
Check your calendar and the Code of Virginia and the US Code. There is an Official Holiday on Dec 25th called Christmas. On 1 Jan there is a holiday called New Year’s Day.
Sorry that you haven’t grasped what happened last year. No one was ridiculed. Christmas in every single aspect you can imagine was banned from some public schools.
Stop for a second and just let that sink in.
One OFFICIAL, LEGAL holiday was banned in public schools. (Or two when you count Lee-Jackson)
If the kids are taught as you were 10 years ago about the historical significance of the Christmas holidays and the historical pagan origins of many symbols, then no child from another viewpoint would be ridiculed. They would be taught. Which is precisely what the parents, who are indeed Christians without parenthises (sp), are asking of their public schools.
Sometimes I think this guy Bowden is really Stephen Colbert in disguise. Just when I think Colbert crosses the line into ludicrousness, here comes Bowden “seriously” making the same asinine arguments and fighting the same stupid and meaningless cultural battles. It would be too funny if it weren’t so sad. Right wing caricatures live on! I look forward to the day when Bacon’s is able to print the rantings of some left-wing wingnut to offer some balance to Bowden’s shrill blathering (I’m kidding – I won’t be holding my breath).
James,
No, I was wide awake. And I was educated to the historical aspect of Christmas. And Easter, and the Muslim high holy days, and Hannukah, and Yom Kippur and a whole host of others.
In the Public Schools. In Virginia.
Being educated about a holiday is not what the people in York County want. They want to CELEBRATE Christmas in their public schools. That is not the role of the public school system, much to the chagrin of the people who made the blog you’re championing.
Actually, the parents want to educate the kids. Does observation = celebration?
Interesting choice of verbs – to celebrate.
Do the children in public schools celebrate all legal holidays? If that is the appropriate verb for what they do, then that is correct for them to do that about Christmas.
Holidays in schools change – as we as a people better understand our history.
For years and years – we had Lee-Jackson day and No Martin Luther King Day.
Many conservative folks were perfectly happy with this situation.
Many stood by and others actively opposed recognizing Martin Luther King as a legitimate historic figure worthy of recognition.
For a long, long time, our history books did not have accounts of black historical figures.
and I just want to point out who was opposed to including King and black history figures… It was the same conservative culture that is now attempting to have the government enshrine their version of history as the only history that can be taught in public schools.
These are the same folks culturally with the same odious values that constituted the Massive Resistance anti-black movement in Virginia. Now that they’ve lost on the integration issue… they’re attempting a “back door” method to exclude others….with different religions and cultural values.
it boils down to the most base of human instincts – “they are not our kind”….
Larry: You’re not from Virginia or the South are you?
The majority White sub-culture in Virginia – the fraternal twin to the Black sub-culture (Read W.E.B. Dubois)- was Democrat, Judeo-Christian and Conservative and held an view on the issue of racial integration that separation of the races was right in many cases, but not all in the mid-60s. Like all of life, it was more complicated than a TV special.
By the 1970s the movement, a change of attitudes, (key point on differences in changing behavior and attitudes),gained momentum for a massive transformation of the human heart.
The morally ascendant ideas of Dr. Marting Luther King Jr, born, bred and matured in his Christianity, struck home with the overwhelming majority of the White, Southern, Christian majority (notice what modifies what) sub-culture in Virginia.
Segregation, and then racism, became – like slavery – a moral anathema.
If you are a Yankee or some other foreigner move in/come here, then I understand your confusion and resulting bias that the one sub-culture that once held one view looks like the same culture you see doing something else now – so you want to tar them with past sins to make their case, today, marginalized.
Sorry, but it doesn’t work except in the MSM, Hollywood and other Liberal circles who need to have the Southern bogeyman for their political agenda.
Celebrating, observing, teaching an official, legal holiday (why can’t some people grasp this?) isn’t excluding anyone.
Again, 10% of the U.S. – that is 30 million Americans – who aren’t Christians celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. That leaves 5% who don’t recognize the holiday at all. So if the public policy math should be to cancel Christmas because 1 in 20 disapprove?
If you don’t want Christmas in the schools, then go out and get the legislation to end it in Virginia and across the U.S. Use the same arguments you are making about it being exclusionary.
JAB – sorry to disappoint you. I am born and bred Virginian and I lived here when Massive Resistance took place. I attended a segregated school and saw first hand the shabby school that blacks had to attend.
I saw water fountains clearly labeled “white only” or “colored”.
The Plantation depicted in ROOTs existed in Spotsylvania – the County where I went to High School.
and I saw FIRST HAND – the Christian Church response to the issue – and that attitude continues to this day in some churches.
JAB – I believe that some Churches ARE THE PROBLEM when it comes to cultural differences. They accentuate and focus the worst instincts in us.
The entire idea that GOD “favors” Judeo-Christians or that our founding Fathers intended for Government to recognize and celebrate officially ONLY Judeo-Christian historic events is anti-people and intolerant of those who are different and who are, very definitely GODs Children also.
My God tells me that it’s wrong and that folks who use Religion to justify treating others this way are even more wrong.
What God tells me is to treat others like you would like to be treated and to accept those who are different than you.
What I feel you are advocating is essentially – the concept “separate but equal” religions but only certain ones can be officially recognized in schools and public places.
Larry, I’m not disappointed, but confused on how you don’t get it.
MLK wrote pointedly about how the Christian Church in the South had failed in the 50s – when preachers who were polite, kind and respectful to his face wouldn’t preach about integration to their flocks. But, that, ta-da, is precisely the point. The transformation of the human heart in Christians in the South since then is the story that I expect others to miss, but not someone from Spotsy.
The Founders clearly expected the U.S. to be a Christian country, where Christian is an adjective (as in the Virginia Constitution modifying the work ‘tolerance’), not as a noun as in a federal church state.
In 1787, only Virginia didn’t have a church-state or religious tests for public office at the state level. There were no tests at the Federal level, as specified in the second and current Constitution, to avoid fights for supremacy among the states.
U.S. Grant signed the Federal law making Christmas a holiday. I don’t know when Virginia made it a holiday.
If you look at my blog,Deo Vindice, you’ll see 45 preambles to state constitutions referencing God. The god isn’t Allah, Buddha,Krishna,Baal, Asheroth or the Great Spirit. It is the Judeo-Christian God.
Observing a holiday that is observed by 95% of the people, including 10% non-believers, is hardly exclusionary in a democratic republic. Christmas has religious, family, and secular components.
Observing Christmas in public schools is about teaching, not preaching. It is National and Virginia holiday.
Name a historic non-Judeo-Christian event that happened in the U.S.A. from another religion that shaped our culture and history and should be celebrated. Name one.
Does it matter?
Especially if history shows a litany of AWOL Judeo-Christian in matters of mistreatment of other humans.. like the Native Americans, the Slaves, black lynchings, etc.
Church on Sunday… and look the other way on Monday through Saturday?
WHERE are our religious folks today when it comes to kidnapping and arresting people without charges and tortuing them to find out what to charge them with?
We KNOW they tend to side overwhelmingly at the polls with the government folks currently in power who advocate this….treatment…
These are the folks we should give preferential treatment to in our government and schools?
This is the kind of ethics and religious culture and morals that we should be teaching to kids?
JAB – I think THIS is THE problem to be honest.
There ARE … GOOD Christians with love in their hearts in this world but I fear they are outnumbered sometimes by masquerading brethern sitting next to them in the pews.
There are also many people with GOD in their hearts that are not Judeo-Christians and I think an insult to them when we “annoint” Judeo-Christians as the only “true” American Culture.
A casual reading of American history by any literate person will lead one to the unavoidable conclusion that our culture is Judeo-Christian. Our population has and is overwhelmingly Judeo-Christian. Hence our Civilization and Nation earn the modifying adjective – Judeo-Christian. That fact is not an anointment.
The only perfect human was Jesus. The rest of us are sinful.
As to the other historical references, I fear you suffer from ‘presentism’. Not an insult, I promise, and not sad rudly. Meant as an observation from an old teacher.
I AGREE that our culture is Judeo-Christian but let me point out that – that culture AND our founding fathers expressed principles of fair and equal treatment for people of all faiths, gender, color, origin.
We see first hand throughout history and throughout our existing world when people who live side by side are not treated equally.
There is no justification for it – and WE KNOW that it divides people when we do it – so why do we do it – when we KNOW that it received as an insult and a slap in the face?
Doing so when you know it hurts others and promotes “us against them” is a deliberate provocation, the intent of which is not Christian at all in my view
WHY? Are you so afraid of others with different heritages, cultures, views, etc that you must establish a “pecking order” to feel more secure?
Can you not embrace others who do not think like you? Can you not stand side by side with others in spite of your differences on such paltry things as your religious heritage?
On the day of judgment do you REALLY believe that God will consign all non Judeo-Christians to hell and all Judeo-Christians to the promised land?
Do you think that God will not hold Judeo-Christians responsible for their treatment of others who are not Judeo-Christian?
Finally – do you think .. if you go to Heaven that there will not be Muslims there? And do you think if they are there that God will have a pecking order relegating them to a lower status than Judeo-Christians?
Do you think GOD has an American flag at the thrown?
Larry Gross: After a period of time, reading one person’s writing is like seeing someone perform before a camera. Their personalities transcend the medium. So, I feel like I have a sense of you from your writing – and it is that of an earnest, decent, bright man.
We just aren’t communicating. Probably, my fault, because, as a polemicist, I use harsh words to make people think starkly. My fault.
Jim Bacon has the premier policy site in the Commonwealth. He tires of theology, even though he can hold his ground in such discussions.
If you wish, email me and I’ll open a thread on my blog, Deo Vindice, with your theological questions.
The issue is the observation, celebration, education, teaching – not preaching – of all holidays in public schools.
The religious origins of one holiday (CHRISTmas) and one vacation (Easter) are irrelevant to their historical, traditional aspects – and their foundational role in our culture, civilization and nation.
Teaching, not preaching, all the legal holidays – including CHRISTmas and Lee-Jackson Day – is important to the education of all Virginians.
It isn’t exclusionary, rank ordering, discriminatory or any other PC buzz word for ‘eeeew, bad’.
Discriminating against the inclusive teaching of all holidays is prejudice, bias, and very, very un-Virginian.
Best wishes.
Best wishes back JAB.
I think you can trust – we will not agree. We’re on different planets from the get-go.
I’m just hopeful that as more time goes by – that more and more folks will understand where we are headed with the issue and weigh in on it at election time.
Larry, well we agree on that. Let the voters decide the biggest issues. I never fear when there is an election in Virginia. Never. Just like the Marriage Amendment. It all works out for good.
JAB, just curious – what three elected Republican Party Offices do you hold in Virginia? Also, what are your graduate degrees in from Columbia and Harvard?
And is “Columbia” the “Columbia Theological Seminary”, and not “Columbia University”?
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