Students at Ramage Elementary School in Boone County, West Virginia will no longer get to take part in a school play about how Jews and atheists and Muslims are going to Hell.
Their “live nativity scene” was canceled after school officials realized, only after prompting, that performing a play promoting Christianity was illegal. Apparently they didn’t realize it until after a parent pointed it out.
Which means every news story about the controversy now features a whole bunch of parents, wholly ignorant of the law, whining about how they won’t get to pretend school is church.
“The kids had worked on this and practiced it, and it really discouraged them, kind of hurt their feelings,” parent Jeremy Ball said. “Some of them did cry a little bit.”
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“In my opinion, it’s really just a sad situation,” parent Kelly Arkola said. “These kids have been practicing for this. It really should’ve taken place (inside the school). Because of some people who don’t know the true meaning of Christmas, it didn’t happen.”
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“We were wanting to do a nativity scene inside the school, not to hurt or bother or force anything one anyone,” Ball said. “It’s just that time of year.”
Regarding the crying children: If these parents and administrators were more responsible, then they wouldn’t have told the kids to do something illegal first. Don’t blame the critics. Blame yourselves.
It’s also not just “that time of year” because Christians don’t own December. They don’t magically get a month where everyone in the school has to promote their faith without consequence. It’s not like everyone at this school would be totally cool with everyone promoting Islam during Ramadan.
A few of the ignorant angry parents signed their kids out of school during the day this week so the kids could perform the Christian advertisement across the street, then signed them back into school. That may be legal, but you have to wonder why they didn’t just have their kids perform the play in church instead.
Also note how none of the parents had anything to say about non-Christians at the school. That’s because they don’t give a damn about the feelings of those kids. To them, Jews don’t matter in December; Muslims just need to get with the program; atheists need to be saved; and Christians who support church/state separation are the worst of the bunch.
Kudos to the parent who blew the whistle on this practice. School officials owe that person a huge debt of gratitude for all the money they saved from the lawsuit they would have lost.
(Thanks to Brian for the link)
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