Elementary school students in a Virginia school district came home with an interesting flyer this week: an invitation to a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule. Parents were understandably upset. The difficulty stems from a decision by the 46th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in Maryland which concludes that if one community organization is allowed to distribute their flyers through the school, all nonprofit community organizations must be given the same access. We can evangelize paganism through our public schools so that the boy scouts can send home information?
The reasoning to allow flyers on a wide range of issues was that in the smaller schools, those facilities provide a core for the community, and to eliminate that as a “communication vehicle” could leave children without information about some opportunities they would have, schoolboard chairman Sue Friedman said.
This is the natural consequence of allowing the school to become the center of the community.
Fortunately, enough parents raised concern that the policy is supposed to be reanalyzed and adjusted. (Parents do still have some measure of influence in their local school district when they are upset enough to take a stand).
What I find interesting is the symbol at the bottom of the invitation. It is a symbol associated with Wicca and even Satanism. One of my education courses involved classroom management, and one of the things we were advised to watch for was the displaying of certain colors and symbols. The pentagram understandably was among the symbols to watch for, as per the Lawrence police department. An interesting dilemma to face a school district. Should a student come bearing this symbol in any form, he will raise suspicion. Yet the district is sending it home with students in their book bags.
In other Christmas news, second Advent is fast approaching, and it is time again to wage war on Christmas, a battle that has been raging since our earliest settlers. A new blog seems to have taken up the challenge of defending Christmas against the attack. Are they for real? The only reason I ask is that their first post appears December 6th, the same day another blogger suggested a parody site along the same theme. The site is amusing (and even references the blog suggesting the parody). That and the first entry. Maybe I don’t get out much, but I’m not accustomed to people defending links in this way:
Some of you may not like the fact that it isn’t written from “our” perspective, but I think it gives some good non-biased insight on what it is Conservatives are thinking in regards to this debate.
It appears to me a rather condescending manner to speak with one’s readers, but perhaps I’m being overly suspicious. It should be interesting, at any rate.
Hat Tip: Education Wonks
Related Tags: Christmas, education, separation of church and state, war on Christmas, holidays
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
It’s important to note - which the WND article does not- that previously two elementary students at this school district tried to distribute fliers to their class to promote their church’s vacation bible school by way of the schools’ “backpack mail” process, used to send information home to kids’ parents. They weren’t allowed to, because of the schools’ prohibition on sending home “partisan, sectarian, religious, or political” fliers. The kids’ father got Jerry Falwell to go after the county, and facing an expensive lawsuit they knew they would lose the school board agreed to let religious groups distribute materials through the system.
So the pagan group is just taking advantage of a loophole that Jerry Falwell’s Christian organization opened up. Fair is fair.
I don’t know that I’d call it a “loophole.” It seems the very nature of the law. If you allow one group, you allow them all. I’d have to do a bit more research on it, but I don’t believe Falwell is necessarily the driving force here. There have been numerous cases which have been decided similarly in several states. To me, there is a marked difference between students handing out religious material and organizations simply handing over the materials to the school to be distributed to students.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter. This is a natural consequence of the decision. And it will be the same result with the faith-based initiatives, eventually. There is nothing stopping this organization from applying for federal funds for whatever it is they may be involved with to help with literacy issues, etc.
But on a very basic level, I don’t view the public education system as a community bulletin board. It really is an all or nothing issue…which means that we let the KKK in, too, I suppose. Or just stop sending this stuff home with students.
Thanks for the mention. Just for the record…
We actually wanted to start a Christmas blog early last month. We installed Wordpress for the blog here
http://www.bloggingman2007.com/war-on-christmas/
You can check Google Cache to confirm the date the URL was created and the date the blog went live, even though it’s blank.
When I launched ConservaBlogs.com I decided that the Christmas blog would be more fitting on the CB domain instead of the BloggingMan domain. It just so happens that I found the post you speak of when I first went looking for things to blog. Hence the coincidence.
Oh! And I went back to read the first post and I can see where you’re coming from on saying that I kind of spoke down to some readers. I didn’t at all mean for it to sound that way. I’m no pro writer so sometimes that kind of thing happens without me knowing it.
Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.
Wow, I can’t believe that Santa visited me on my blog : ) I don’t know that anyone would be offended by anything you wrote (at least I certainly wasn’t). But it is, well, a little suspect.
Either way, I’ll check in on you and have fun with it.
Happy Holidays! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Don’t believe Santa! His blog is satirical!
It’s my blog which is the TRUE War on Christmas blog!!
Y’all have way too much time on your hands. Enjoy.
This article is now featured at:
http://bah-humbug.blogspot.com/2006/
12/carnival-of-hijacked-holidays-iv.html
Thank you for your submission!