Alliance Defending Freedom has put together a handy fact sheet busting seven common myths about how Christmas can and cannot be celebrated by and in our public schools.
If you’ve ever wondered whether a school can ban teachers and students from saying “Merry Christmas,” or whether a Nativity scene can be placed on school property, ADF has the answers.
The following blog post is by Family Council staff member Deborah Beuerman.
The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah this year received much more attention in the news than usual because Hanukkah and Thanksgiving overlapped for the first time in over 100 years.
Like most non-Jews, I knew little about this festival. I knew it is called The Festival of Lights, that one more candle on a candle stand called a menorah is lighted each day for about a week, that the celebration somehow commemorates a battle, that potato pancakes and dreidels are involved, that it is a minor holiday, and that in this country many Jewish children are given gifts because their parents don’t want them to be envious of Christian children who receive Christmas gifts around the same time.
I was enlightened by a caller to a talk show who explained the meaning of Hanukkah and offered some very thought-provoking insight into the situation in our country today.
A Montana school recently received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the ACLU threatening possible legal action if the school’s choir members were permitted to voluntarily participate in a community Christmas celebration at a local church.
The school has rightly decided to ignore the threat and let students join in the festivities.
From Alliance Defending Freedom:
“Schools should not have to think twice about whether they can allow choirs to participate in community Christmas events,” said Litigation Staff Counsel Rory Gray. “Courts have unanimously allowed students to sing Christmas carols at school. Nothing changes when they sing the same Christmas songs at a community festival instead. We commend the districts for rightly ignoring the baseless threats delivered by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.”
This latest action by the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation is yet another in a long series of anti-Christmas (and anti-religion) activities by the groups, including:
In addition to past actions by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Arkansas has also seen its Christmas celebrations targeted by other atheist groups, including unwarranted controversy over a Nativity display at a school in Paragould and an anti-Christmas display sponsored by the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers on the Arkansas Capitol grounds.