Allah is God, we recall at dawn,Now contrast that with the lines they were given to sing in reference to Christ:
Praying ‘til night during Ramadan
At this joyful time we pray happiness for you,
Allah be with you all your life through.”
“I didn’t know there was a little boy at the manger. What child is this?"I'm not sure there was a little boy or not?" Who cares if the Christians are offended. I rarely agree with the AFA's Micah Clark, but in this case, he's dead on right. “(This show) affirmed Islam and negated Christianity," Clark observes. "I wouldn’t have had a problem if it had been equal to all faiths.”
I’m not sure if there was a little boy or not.
Then why did you paint one on your nativity window?
I just thought if there was a little boy, I’d like to know exactly what he (sic) say.
UPDATE: There's more public school madness. A second-grader in a Connecticut school was suspended and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation for having the audacity to draw a picture of Christ on the cross.
19 comments:
You sure do like tempests in teapots.
Why would I not be surprised that you, Jon, a public school teacher would feel that way?
The liberals continue to eat away at the rights of the majority and the principles upon which this once great nation was founded.
Just remember, you whining, hand-wringing, bleeding-heart pansies...when the big war starts, you will be there too.
The fact that the school called this a Christmas program includes Christ. Much ado about nothing.
No, It was a "holiday" celebration. Celebrating Christmas was banned at public schools years ago.
I'm more offended by the words negating Christ than the words affirming Allah. These amount to apostasy for a Christian. Children are capable of having deeply held faith beliefs of their own and it can cause great conflict to be bullied into crimes against their conscience. I clearly remember how I felt as a young high school student, at that time a devout Catholic, when a Lutheran teacher asked our class to write a paper about Luther in the first person. I felt I was being bullied into denying my faith. It was with great trepidation that I told the teacher I was uncomfortable with the assignment, and that I would rather be the only person in the class to write a paper about contemporaries of Luther who bravely confronted corruption in the church rather than break away from it. The teacher later thanked me for my courage and told me she learned from my paper. But the experience left me badly shaken.
Children should not be required to participate in events or actions that violate their own consciences. A Muslim child should be able to opt out of singing Christmas carols if they wish. By the same token, however, a Christian child should be able to affirm their own faith in Christ.
I try not to get offended by this stuff but I do shake my head sometimes.
Sometimes it's a catch-22. When my daughter was in HS, she being one of a few Catholics in a class of mostly Christians of other kinds (Catholics are Christians, you know) was asked by the teacher to clarify or expand on some topic that others in the class had expressed stereotypical misunderstandings about. While she acquitted herself very well, she was most uncomfortable for having been put on the spot by the teacher. Yet, everyone, including the teacher, learned what was accurate in place of their ignorance. So, I told her it was character-building. Not sure if she believed me.
i thought schools taught reading, writing and arithmetic and houses of worship taught religion.
I was under the impression that ALL religions were supposed to be kept out of public school celebrations, not just the majority one.
Besides, who was the brainiac who thought to include something about Ramadan in a December setting anyway? No cookies and punch after the program for you (unless it was after sundown).
"I was under the impression that ALL religions were supposed to be kept out of public school celebrations, not just the majority one."
Only by LIBERALS.
I tried to find a link to it bue can't - I came across a story from wnother location (also a school, I beleive) just a few weeks back where it was decided references to Allah were OK but references to Christ were not.
The 'explanation' was along the lines of 'Allah' referred to an abstraction while 'Christ' was a specific religious being. And somehow that made one OK and the other not.
Whatever.
It gets so tiresome trying to be politically correct at Christmas time... Damn, you can't even have a school holiday show without some conservatives getting their panties in a bunch over something.
Just tell the kids to forget it.
When and how did we get into this mindset that simply acknowledging one thing automatically demeans another?
It seems we've travelled well past Political Correct and arrived at Political Overcorrection.
Like everything, this stuff can be taken too far -- that goes for both sides -- and reactions are provoked. Here's a real life but hopefully extreme example of why people sometimes react badly to the "other" side:
Years ago, my husband had a boss who was in the habit of carrying his Bible at all times and at all meetings. And of referring to it often. This was a manufacturing/processing type of place that had nothing to do with religion whatsoever. He also happened to be one of the meanest, most threatening people you'd meet in a workplace. People felt unable to speak up about it. These circumstances helped produce a hostile atmosphere. So I guess when the situation is such that people can speak up, they do.
"...Damn, you can't even have a school holiday show without some conservatives getting their panties in a bunch over something."
How about a CHRISTMAS show? This country was founded and based on Christian principles, the Bible, and God. Almost every old federal building and statue or monument has references to Christianity, EVERY state constitution has references to God or The Almighty, etc.
For a hundred years, people FLOCKED to this country. They learned OUR language, OUR culture, etc. so they could become AMERICANS!
Now, because of liberals, you have to be an African-American, a Mexican-American, or a Muslim-American.
You can freely talk about, write about, and celebrate in schools, Kwanza, Allah, Ramadan, etc. but DON'T YOU DARE mention God, Jesus Christ, or use the words "Easter" or "Christmas."
But the liberals keep dumbing us down so that we don't notice this is happening to us.
I bet you STILL don't see anything wrong with this picture, do you?
YES, my panties are in a bunch over this country being DESTROYED from WITHIN.
Concerned Taxpayer:
You are engaging in a lot of revision of history as well as getting riled up about something that doesn't matter. There were a range of religious beliefs at the founding of this country. I would guess that none of them looked like the "Christian" religion that you imagine today. In many cases, people came here to escape persecution by the majority religion. That's why we don't have a national religion and it's why we have a separation between church and state. You seem to be advocating something that the founders of the country tried so hard to get away from.
Meanwhile there have been really serious threats to our country - by both Republicans and Democrats.
Look, stop taking the bait. Millions of Americans are fed "news" stories that when you stop and look at them are really just an intentional distraction. The real issues are going on somewhere else and nobody is paying attention. You are being played.
Amen to what Greg wrote!!!
"Separate of church and state" is and always has been. It refers to prohibition of a secular governmental body that would make punishments of law based on some 'word of god' declaration. You know, something like 'adultery is a sin, off with your head' - like you find in many muslim countries.
Having a school play that *gasp* mentions Christmas or Bhudda or whatever is in no way a violation of the 'separation.'
Afterall, it is 'separation' not 'complete isolation.'
I'll throw in the token rejection that there was intended to be a "separation of church and state" in the Constitution.
1. That phrase itself is not in the document, but in a private letter sent by Thomas Jefferson to some private citizens. Jefferson was not a signer of the Constitution, nor did he take part in the Constitutional Convention.
2. When the Constitution was ratified, several states did in fact already have "state-supported" churches, and continued to have them well after the Federal Constitution was ratified. They simply understood the language that "Congress shall make no law...," to mean exactly that -- CONGRESS. The State governments could, and did, do whatever they wanted to do.
3. Jefferson and Madison sought to eliminate the Virginia government's state support of a particular denomination. This is the same Madison credited with being the central author and advocate of the Constitution. Jefferson and Madison prevailed upon the Virginia populace and political and governmental structures to end the church/state partnership, and amended the State's constitution to prohibit the practice.
This immediately begs the question of why they didn't just announce that the Federal Constitution had already banned the practice? Apparently because they knew that it didn't, and that their remedy was to amend the State's constitution, because that was the only jurisdiction with authority over the issue.
Of course, the First Amendment was itself amended to give Congress the power over religion that it had previously and originally been denied, back in, uhm, ... Well, I guess it has never been amended.
Perhaps it is a wise policy, perhaps not. Clearly it was supposed to be up to the States individually about what they wanted their individual policies to be. The blanket statement "separation of church and state" is a dramatic and dangerous over-simplification, which has huge consequences in all discussion of federal power, state power, and individual freedom.
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