Reflections, Reflections

Teachers at a French school have rejected their town's annual gift to students of chocolates shaped like Christian crosses and St. Nicholas.
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This also happened with chocolates, no less.

I think I am going to write the school and ask them to send all the offensive items to me. I´m solely thinking of the French public good. We don´t want these perverse CHOCOLATE items lurking about, dangerously locked up in some school closet, with a big Beware! sign on it. School officials will do very good to send all dangerous chocolate items to my personal address.

alessandrab.blogspot.com

I had joked about this becoming a reality, actually on Scrappleface, I asked when would public school officials start sending kids who muttered Merry Christmas to jail, for religious bigotry. Living in a totalitarian, diseased liberal society, nothing is too outlandish to become reality, and quickly.

December 16, 2004
Plano school bans Christmas Colors

The war on Christmas in public schools gets curiouser and curiouser. School officials in Plano, Texas, not content to neuter Christmas by blotting out angels, Mary, and the Baby Jesus, have now banned the colors red and green. According to the Alliance Defense Fund, Plano Independent School District policy "prohibits students from wearing red and green at their ‘winter break’ parties because...they are Christmas colors. Even the plates and napkins must be white.”

Also banned: Candy canes and pencils with religious messages on them, reindeer symbols, and writing “Merry Christmas” on greeting cards to U.S. soldiers. Parents involved in school activities must also toe the secularist line: District policy bars them from exchanging “religious” Christmas items with other parents.
Posted by Vincent at CST 04:21 PM | Comments (28) | TrackBack (0)

Some of my favorite comments to the above have been bolded:

sounds like paranoia to me
Posted by me at December 16, 2004 04:35 PM

Oh, woe is us! American Christianity(TM) is in such an awful state! How persecuted we are, brethren! *sob*sob*sob* How shall we ever overcome this terrible bigotry perpetuated solely by liberals and atheists?? *more weeping ensues*
Posted by foolishyetwise at December 16, 2004 04:44 PM

This is a joke right? I mean, seriously, this is just a parody?

Because if not, this is a major infringement on constitutional rights. And I don't care that it's aimed at Christianity (ok, I care some), this is just nuts.
Posted by Dan F at December 16, 2004 04:44 PM

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas.....

sorry, couldn't resist.... :^)
Posted by Robert Perry at December 16, 2004 04:46 PM


"I suspect a lot of the anti-Christmas paranoia in Plano is an over-reaction to an otherwise sensible concern for the feelings of nonChristian kids ( Shapiros, Cohens, Faisals etc)."

Over-reaction? I guess, if that's what you want to call it. If the color red worn in combination with the color green offends you, either you're Carson from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or you need to seek some counseling.

What leads these people to conclude that the best way to limit religion's influence is to pretend that it doesn't exist?
Posted by Peter at December 16, 2004 05:29 PM

Okay, foolishyetwise, it's not persecution, I'll be the first to agree.

But isn't it still appalling because it's a ludicrous abuse of reason? Shouldn't we still be concerned about people acting like idiots, imposing it on other people, and thinking they're working for the common good?
Posted by Jane D. at December 16, 2004 05:42 PM

What's so Christian about the colors of red and green?
Posted by Luke at December 16, 2004 05:48 PM

What's so offensive about their presence?
Posted by Christopher Taylor at December 16, 2004 05:50 PM

Sounds to me like time for a school board recall election intoto unless the district superintendent is fired.

Politics/bigotry aside, this is nuts and the march of the clones is the next logical step -- individualism is dead. ANYTHING could be construed as offensive in these schools by whoever made up these rules and that's scary.
Posted by RonD at December 16, 2004 05:52 PM

The scariest part of this story is the fact that these are the people who are trying to educate our kids.

They don't have any reasoning ability.
Posted by Lloyd at December 16, 2004 05:53 PM

This is ridiculous! If you ask me, red and green symbolize the holly and ivy (plants are perfectly secular, as are reindeer)
The next thing you know, Santa Claus will be banned since he's a re-make of St. Nicholas.
Posted by Irisheyes at December 16, 2004 06:16 PM

This has already happened in France, almost. St. Nicholas was banned from a school.

Wow, I haven't laughed out loud by myself in a quite awhile, but this one produced an outright guffaw. I used to live in Plano (my brother still does)...I don't remember it being such a paranoid place. It's amazing the lengths people will go to these days to avoid offending someone (in this case those who don't celebrate Christmas). Can't we all just get tougher skin?
Posted by Ellen at December 16, 2004 06:39 PM

Hold the presses...besides red and green, the decorations can't be white, gold, or black because of their association with the New Orleans Saints. Brown is out because of its association with the San Diego Padres, and blue is out because of the Crips (which is considered a "religion" to some in east L.A.). I guess that leaves gray...
Posted by Lou at December 16, 2004 06:53 PM

Could someone clarify the ban on parents' exchanging "religious" Christmas items: Is this only _at_ the school events, or are they somehow gonna find out and send your kid to stand in the corner if you're friends with another family and send them a religious card?

Even if it's only at school events, that's pretty ridiculous.

And we can point out all we like that this isn't persecution, but there are several relevant points: First, doesn't this make an impression on kids? "God" is a dirty word in school, a taboo in the negative sense. "Religious" references are to be erased. Not good. Secondly, this makes something far more like real persecution all the more imaginable. In Canada a pastor can have a person stand up in a private meeting of the church membership and, essentially, threaten him with lawsuit or prosecution if what he says in that meeting is deemed "hateful." In France it is now prosecutable to wear "large crosses" in public. All of this comes about not at once but gradually, and making religion a bad thing in state-run schools is surely a step on the way.
Posted by Lydia at December 16, 2004 07:08 PM

It is one thing to regulate what teachers do or say about Christmas, but quite another to regulate the students' speech - or dress. Children at school should still have the rights of the First Amendment, whether that means wearing a Christmas outfit, writing about their faith to a soldier or using the term "Merry Christmas" in writing or speech.
By the way, students have First Amendment rights regardless of their faith or lack of it. Yes, we are not France and we still have more rights than they do.
How can this regulation of student speech stand up in court? Hopefully it will be overturned quickly by this ADF lawsuit.
Posted by Beth D. at December 16, 2004 07:18 PM

So can a lawyer kindly explain to us non-lawyers what the indisputable free speech rights of the students in this case are?

Sure am glad I live in 'red state' South Carolina where we do vote out fuzzy headed liberals.

Maybe those in Texas should think about doing the same.

Merry Christmas to all!!!
Posted by 'Rock' at December 16, 2004 07:27 PM

I'll be the first to say these people don't get it.
Posted by Luke at December 16, 2004 07:45 PM

This from a community that has one of the highest student drug use in the nation. Maybe some of the school officials are sniffing the same stuff.
Posted by payne at December 16, 2004 08:03 PM

No, the scariest part of this story is that Jack Graham, previous president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is the pastor of Prestonwood, the largest Baptist church in Plano. He handpicked the members of the resolutions committee, that refused to recommend the Christian Education Resolution be voted on at our last annual convention. One of the committee members lives in Plano and another was the pastor of the largest Baptist church in Allen, a neighboring suburb of Plano.

"There is nothing wrong with our public schools, and we must support the parents and teachers there. We must be salt and light. We are making a difference."

Yeah, right. Like I believe in Santa Clause!
Posted by Elizabeth at December 16, 2004 08:14 PM

I never wear red and green but if I went to a Plano school I sure would. Come on Plano students, all of you, wear red and green! It sure wouldn't look good for the school if all the students were expeled. Maybe they'd put you all in jail - wouldn't that be a colorful sight!
Posted by David Ross at December 16, 2004 08:44 PM

I say, thank God and pass the biscuits!

It's about time that we ditch the secular colors of red and green used for the "Happy Holidays" and go back to the *liturgical colors* of *purple* for *Advent* and *white* for *Christmas.*

Oops...did the waco Plano party poopers know that white was a *Christian* color, too?
Posted by Chi Chi at December 16, 2004 08:45 PM

Next thing ya' know they'll be outlawing Red, White, and Blue, because it stands for something...
Posted by jimu at December 16, 2004 09:08 PM

Boy, I din't think big brother and the censorship police could ban certain frequencies of the visible spectrum. Reality these days is stranger than Orwellian fiction.
Posted by Rick Flanders at December 16, 2004 09:10 PM