Our schools have become so politically correct that one school removed the word "Christ" from the song Silent Night in order to not offend non-Christians. The politically correct libtard crowd hates the Christian origin of Christmas, but they love the secular commercial aspect of it. What they've lost perspective on is the fact that the Pilgrims and Founding Fathers were devout Christians and this country's laws are based on Christian precepts. They're enjoying the fruits of the labor of a Christian founded society, like the safety and security of the civil society Christianity creates, yet they hate Christianity and attack it at every opportunity. Truly, liberalism is a mental disorder.
Christ has officially been removed from Christmas. At least that was the case at one middle school on Long Island, New York, where its holiday-concert chorus sang a version of "Silent Night"
that had all references to "the savior" and "holy infant" removed by
school administrators. But the effort to avoid alienating people seems
to have backfired.
"It's offensive," one father of a student at the Ralph J. Osgood
Intermediate School in Kings Park told CBS New York. "If you're going to
remove words to not offend other religions, what about the religion
that that song belongs to, which is Christianity?"
The
fifth-grade students sang the edited classic — which mixed and matched
verses in a way that left out the most religious references — at the
concert, on Dec. 12. But that upset some parents, who felt the song was
sacred and should have instead been left intact or instead been
performed as an instrumental or kept out of the concert altogether. Some
spoke out about it at a Tuesday board of education meeting.
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"'Silent Night' at its core is a religious song. It's a sacred,
religious hymn that tells the story of Jesus's birth," father Kevin
McDonald said at the meeting, as reported by the Kings Park Patch.
Cobbling together lyrics to water that down, he said, "should have been
off-limits." In the comments section of the Patch story, he added,
"there were many other songs that could have been performed, and there
really was no reason to torture the integrity and meaning of 'Silent
Night,' a sacred, simple, and timeless Christian hymn."
At the
meeting, administrators were quick to say they were sorry to anyone they
offended. "I apologize for that — it's the last thing anybody intended.
Going forward, it's not going to happen again. They will be more
cautious and cognizant of this particular issue when they select a
song," Superintendent Susan Agruso noted at the meeting. "They meant
nothing wrong. Clearly, we could have done something different, and in
the future we will."
A statement on the school district's website also acknowledges the situation:
"The Board of Education sincerely apologizes to our community members
who were offended by the change of lyrics to the song Silent Night and
we share in your sentiment. This action was not approved by the Board of
Education or district administration, nor is it their role to approve
the songs chosen for our concerts. We are aware that no disrespect was
intended on the part of any staff member. We will be taking steps to be
certain this never happens again. As a Board of Education, we have taken
offense to this action and again offer our sincerest apologies."
The idea of Christmas carols being sung in schools — similar to that of
manger scenes being displayed on public property — has come under more
and more scrutiny by religiously diverse communities. In 2009, a U.S.
appeals court upheld
a New Jersey district's ban on religious music after an angry father
challenged the ruling. This year, a South Carolina public charter school
banned Christmas carols, with or without lyrics, from its concerts,
while a Bordentown, NJ, school banned
three overtly religious carols. But Bordentown, New Jersey, reversed
its decision after receiving a letter from the Alliance Defending
Freedom, a Christian legal organization, urging officials to reconsider.
"We get an enormous amount of complaints from parents around religious
music, especially around holiday time," noted Liz Cavell, staff attorney
with the non-profit Freedom From Religion Foundation,
which "promotes the constitutional principle of separation of church
and state." She told Yahoo Shine that Christmas carols, in particular,
are "a common source of angst in public schools" but that the issue is a
legally complex one.
While fights over public manger scenes are
also complicated, she explained, "public school property is not like a
public square or public sidewalk, as children are young, impressionable
and mandated by law to be there. So generally, I think courts are much
more protective when it comes to what constitutes an endorsement of
religion." That said, Cavell added, "Music is a different area of law
because of the objective nature of art. And there is a canon of sacred
music out there that's academically valuable."
Still, the
foundation's position is that public schools should aim to choose
secular holiday songs (think "Jingle Bell Rock" versus "O Come, All Ye
Faithful"), since "there doesn't seem to be a dearth of secular music
out there." That way, she notes, "nobody's excluded, nobody's offended,
and nobody's songs need to be edited."
School Omits 'Christ' from 'Silent Night,' Upsetting Parents
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