| The cultural assault against Christianity continues in America. As our
society bends over backward to assure Islam that it is a glorified and
peaceful religion, the least it could do is to accord Christianity similar
respect.
In Portland, Ore., a mother was upset because the Boy Scouts were
recruiting at her son¹s elementary school. Her son was repeatedly recruited,
beginning when he was 6 years old, but the Boy Scouts admit only boys who
profess a belief in God, and the boy and his mother are atheists.
The aggrieved family filed a complaint with the school district alleging
that the school, by allowing recruiting on its property during school hours,
violated Oregon¹s anti-discrimination law. The law prohibits religious
discrimination in Oregon¹s public school system. Boy Scout leaders insisted
that school recruitment is essential because it is the most effective and
least expensive method.
The school superintendent twice ruled against the boy, saying that it is
the Boy Scouts, not the school, that deny membership to atheists.
Interestingly, when the matter was appealed to the Circuit Court the boy
testified that he had never actually tried to join the Boy Scouts. When he
came home after first being recruited and excitedly told his
activist-atheist mother, she told him, "The Boy Scouts do not take our
kind," and the boy broke into tears. Regardless, the Court overruled the
superintendent and ordered him to rewrite his decision.
Before you conclude that this is a splendid vindication of
constitutional principles rather than evidence of our society¹s growing
hostility to Christianity, consider more examples reported by The Washington
Times in a recent article:
-- A Frederick County school employee was prohibited from passing out
Christmas cards at school because it "may not be a legally protected right
on a public school campus."
-- A Pennsylvania fourth-grader was stopped from giving Christmas cards
to classmates.
-- Two Minnesota middle-schoolers got in trouble for wearing red and
green scarves in a Christmas skit and for ending the skit with a Merry
Christmas wish for the audience. (You heard me right; they got disciplined
for this.)
-- Two Massachusetts students were forbidden from creating cards saying
"Merry Christmas" or depicting a nativity scene.
-- An Oregon superintendent required removal of religious, but not
secular decorations from students¹ lockers.
-- A Georgia school board, after being threatened with suit by the
ACLU, deleted the word "Christmas" from the school calendar.
Notice that all of these involve public repression of voluntary
student
action. You can dress them up in noble-sounding civil rights language or the
enlightened vernacular of multiculturalism and pluralism, but the bottom
line remains: Expressions of Christianity are becoming increasingly taboo in
polite American society today. Yet expressions of utter disrespect for
Christianity and what it holds sacred are celebrated in some circles. The
University of Northern Iowa, for example, recently hosted "Corpus Christi,"
a play depicting Christ having sex with the 12 apostles.
As you probably know, the war against Christianity and Christmas is not
a phenomenon localized to the public schools. A county executive in
Washington State issued a memo decreeing that any holiday celebrations must
be "religion-neutral" and "held in a respectful, inclusive and sensitive
manner that does not favor one religion over another." Greetings were
ordered to be generic ("Happy Holidays"), and decorations were not to
include "religious symbols." The memo added that before holding a holiday
social gathering all employees ought to be consulted and care should be
taken to protect from retaliation those who do not concur with holding the
gathering. Thankfully, after complaints by the Catholic League and others,
the executive reversed himself and permitted employees to say "Merry
Christmas."
Can you imagine this? The prohibitions are bad enough, but the paranoid
order not to retaliate is way over the top. Besides those who are stumbling
drunk from the noxious fumes of political correctness, who would even
imagine that an employee would be retaliated against for not endorsing a
little Christmas party?
There are doubtlessly some sincere zealots out there who mistakenly
believe that the First Amendment Establishment clause mandates not only a
separation of church and state, but also the virtual freedom from religion
in the public arena. But others just use the Constitution as a stealth
weapon against Christianity. It is not constitutional rights they are
promoting, but a worldview that is decidedly hostile to Christianity because
its values get in the way of their agenda. |