December 23, 2004
Officials at a Florida public school are being criticized for removing several Christmas songs from a holiday concert and replacing them with three traditional Hanukkah songs.
The "Little Drummer Boy," "Angels We Have Heard on High," and "How Great Our Joy" were among a number of Christian-themed songs cut from the concert at Independence Middle School in Jupiter, Florida. A complaint from a Jewish student prompted the school to censor its program, a move that has angered parents who felt the excised Christmas carols were perfectly appropriate.
Jupiter resident Linda Cameron feels anti-Christian bigotry has gotten out of control this Christmas season. "I think it's a very sad state of affairs that we have come to," she says, "for a country that came to fruition with the dreams and hopes of worshipping freely, that now we've come to a point where our founding religion is the only religion [being excluded.] It almost seems as though they're trying to eradicate Christianity altogether."
Cameron also takes issue with the argument by Independence Middle School officials that they are promoting greater inclusiveness with such measures. The concerned Jupiter citizen considers this claim hypocritical and suspects something more than a commitment to cultural diversity is behind the school's censorship decision, and those who support it. "I definitely think it's an anti-Christian bias," she says. "Politically, I mean, you're talking about people who preach tolerance but don't practice it."
Christmas Wars: the Push to Secularize America
The incident in Jupiter appears to many Christians to be part of an alarming trend. They see public schools, municipalities, and other government-funded entities across the nation apparently complying with efforts to secularize Christmas, or at least to censor all religious references to the real reason for the season. In some cases, the administrators are responding to actual complaints. In other scenarios, it is only the fear of giving offense or inviting litigation -- or the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) -- that has prompted officials to adopt such secularizing policies.
In New Jersey, for example, the South Orange/Maplewood School District recently banned instrumental Christmas carols for fear of giving offense. Then, in Mustang, Oklahoma, a school district recently decided to cut the Nativity scene from a school play while holiday symbols associated with Hanukkah and Kwanzaa were allowed to remain in the program. And in Washington State, a couple of plaintiffs have raised objections to a Christmas tree being placed at City Hall in Bellevue, saying the tree is a Christian symbol and inappropriate for display in a public area.
In other parts of the U.S., schools have forbidden Christmas music on buses, banned the exchange of candy canes with messages attached explaining their religious symbolism, and even excluded the colors red and green at school Christmas parties. Meanwhile, some schools and companies are urging their students and staff to avoid accustomed greetings and references to Christmas, and instead use seasonal or generic terms, such as "Winter Solstice" celebrations and "seasonal holiday" parties.
