Merry Christmas
By Ashley Walker (Contact)
Originally published 09:31 a.m., October 27, 2007
Updated 09:31 a.m., October 27, 2007
Editors Note: In light of the recent proposal presented to the Emporia School Board to bring back the “Christmas” Program we thought we would rerun this column originally published in the Gazette on Dec. 10, 2005. HalleluJah! “Christmas” is back!
In malls, businesses, city halls, public squares, and school yards across the country, after years of politically correct Seasonal/Winter/Holiday celebrations, “Christmas” is finally making its way back into our consciousness – or maybe our “consciences.”
From House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s proclamation this year that the “Capital Holiday Tree” in Washington, D.C. will be called the “Capital Christmas Tree,” to department stores like Macy’s and Dillard’s calling Christmas “Christmas” it appears that those sterile, generic, impersonal seasons of the past may have finally found no room in the inn-terest of Americans.
It’s about time. Especially since “Christmas” has been a federal holiday since 1870 and 96 percent of us, according to a CNN Gallup poll, celebrate it.
Sure, the retailers about-face may be about the bottom-line, an attempt to respond to the consumer backlash against businesses that count on Christmas sales each year, yet refuse to acknowledge the holiday in their stores, but according to the headlines, it’s not stopping there.
In recent years courtrooms around the country are substantiating what public officials like Hastert, and others, are doing in their communities to put the “reason” back into the “season.”
• In Providence , R.I., a federal judge thwarted an attempt by the Americans for Civil Liberties Union to exclude religious holiday displays in the front lawn of Cranston City Hall .
• In Benton, La., the ACLU backed down from its fight to keep a public school from displaying a nativity after the 1993 Christmas season in which it did so.
• In Boca Raton, Fla., high school officials, after being informed of the law, changed their minds about allowing a student to distribute candy canes with a religious message at school.
And in the last few months there are a handful of similar lawsuits pending.
The bottom line is, the Supreme Court has never ruled that the Constitution requires public schools or municipalities to censor Christmas carols, displays, or to eliminate references to Christmas from their celebrations.
Unfortunately, though, over the years, because of groups like the ACLU, America as a whole has been scared away from and misinformed about our right to celebrate “Christmas.”
What exactly are those rights? You may be surprised.
According to the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington , D.C. based not-for-profit public interest law educational group, it is legal to:
• Sing religious Christmas carols at school and/or at Christmas programs if their purpose is the advancement of students’ knowledge of cultural and religious heritage and if they provide an opportunity for students to perform in music, poetry, or drama.
• Place a nativity scene on public property, including schools and school Christmas programs when they are combined with other symbols — such as a menorah or Santa Claus — that depict Christmas as a secular holiday in American culture as well as a religious one.
• Use Biblical references to study the literary or historical the origins of Christmas at school and/or school-sponsored activities.
• Say and use the phrase “Merry Christmas” in schools or school-related activities.
Does all this Christmas “correctness” ring a bell?
If you’ve been around Emporia for long it should. In 1993 we were some of those folks who were persuaded to alter our long-standing Christmas Program in the name of political correctness. As a result, after more than 50 years, it was renamed the Seasonal Celebration and some of the most relevant parts of the program, a more deliberate telling of the birth of Jesus through tableaux, song, and Scripture, were eliminated.
Don’t misunderstand. There’s nothing “wrong,” with the new Seasonal Celebration. It’s certainly festive, filled with holiday carols, music from around the world, even a handful of “religious” songs. But to the 96 percent of us who celebrate Christmas — “Christ’s Mass,” by the way, it doesn’t do the holiday justice. In short, today’s Seasonal Celebration, in name and content, is an incomplete reflection of the season. So, in light of this refreshing shift away from the political correctness that has come to define, yet in many ways diminish, who we are as Americans, perhaps its time we revisited a decision made 12 years ago and bring “Christmas” back to Emporia too.
And what better time: Earlier this year, the executive director of the ACLU in Kansas and Western Missouri, Dick Kurtenbach, who led the charge against Emporia school’s Christmas program in the early 1990s, announced his retirement from the organization.
Why not wish him well in retirement by making our Seasonal Celebration a Christmas Celebration once and for all!
Emporia wishes you a happy retirement, Mr. Kurtenbac ... and a Merry Christmas!
Ashley Walker’s e-mail address is walker@emporiagazette.com.
Comments
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Posted by hogan77 (anonymous) on October 27, 2007 at 11:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Bravo! Glad to see this story re-run. Now all that needs to happen is for the program to be completely changed back to the way it was! We all have the facts now, we now know what we can and cannot do. Bring back the original program, with the original name, and if someone comes back up with the ACLU, put up a fight this time! Don't let them knock you down Emporia, fight to the death!
Posted by hogan77 (anonymous) on October 27, 2007 at 11:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I found this on the internet, and thought I would share it...
http://www.lc.org/resources/nativity.htm...
Looks like we have more rights than we care to remember. The original Christmas Program would have been acceptable. There was not only the religious based songs, but if I recall right, there was also a few non secular songs as well. Canon in D is no where near a religious song, it is classical music!
Posted by create (anonymous) on October 27, 2007 at 4:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This is excellent news. Let me remember those music instructors way back when, who taught my children in orchestra and chorus, Don Kile and Don Grant. Now let's get our Christmas program back and fight if we have to. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Posted by hjcary (anonymous) on October 27, 2007 at 11:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
AMEN! It has always been our right to have the program the way it used to be but there are a few yellow bellied chickens that got scared and changed it for the few. I was asked to play the clarinet solo in the 1993 performance (the first year of the seasonal celebration) and refused to participate. It took a lot of work and missed class time to practice for the program and I did not feel it was worth the lost class time after it was changed. I truly enjoyed my other 6yrs in the program but my class load was too hard to sacrifice time away to play a bunch of non Christmas songs. That was a very bad school year for the school board. That was also the school year they decided we could not have a student led student initiated prayer at graduation, which by the way was totally legal the class president usually said a prayer. The students went to the school board trying to save the student prayer and they voted in the students favor and then right before graduation they decided to re-vote to take the right away when there was not another meeting to fight them back. I don’t even have words to describe my feelings on that move.
Posted by open_eyes (anonymous) on October 28, 2007 at 1:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If I may borrow another's post from the other thread on this subject (no offense intended, I think it just says it as well as I could) this article is a "succinct, articulate and comprehensive presentation of the situation. It could not have been explained more clearly or accurately."
Thank you Ashley!
Posted by open_eyes (anonymous) on October 28, 2007 at 1:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
hogan77, that link was an excellent find. This line game me lots to wonder about....:
"Public officials cannot show hostility toward religion by allowing secular expression but prohibiting religious expression"
Posted by hogan77 (anonymous) on October 28, 2007 at 12:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You are very welcome open_eyes. If there is one thing I was ever passionate about in my years of school in Emporia, it was the original Christmas Program. No one should have ever let it come to the point where things were changed, as there was never anything wrong with the program to start with.
Posted by proverbs18_21 (anonymous) on October 29, 2007 at 3:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
So then, based on the findings of the above article, particularly the excerpts noted below, when can we expect the name of the original program - the "Christmas" Program to be reinstated?
..."The bottom line is, the Supreme Court has never ruled that the Constitution requires public schools or municipalities to censor Christmas carols, displays, or to eliminate references to Christmas from their celebrations."
AND
"According to the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington , D.C. based not-for-profit public interest law educational group, it is legal to:
• Sing religious Christmas carols at school and/or at Christmas programs if their purpose is the advancement of students’ knowledge of cultural and religious heritage and if they provide an opportunity for students to perform in music, poetry, or drama.
• Place a nativity scene on public property, including schools and school Christmas programs when they are combined with other symbols — such as a menorah or Santa Claus — that depict Christmas as a secular holiday in American culture as well as a religious one.
• Use Biblical references to study the literary or historical the origins of Christmas at school and/or school-sponsored activities.
• Say and use the phrase “Merry Christmas” in schools or school-related activities.
Posted by shoehorn (anonymous) on October 29, 2007 at 5:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
MERRY CHRISTMAS! just wanted to practice a little! :)
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