School bans Halloween costumes

[NeverMore]

Man! How could anyone consider Halloween a religious holiday? If anything it's an anti-holiday, poking fun at All-Saint's Day. I agree with the lady in the comments who said that's what's wrong with schools now-a-days, they're taking all the fun out of it.

http://greatneck.patch.com/articles/hal ... hool-board

[witchy]

There hasn't been a Halloween party at school for years around here, for the same reason. It's really sad that they won't let kids be well kids.

[Boogeyman]

Well there is a real dark side to Halloween. It involves witchcraft among some other nasty things. I am quite religious and celebrate Halloween without focusing on any of the negative aspects. It is all about being scared and having fun to most people.

Schools not emphasizing Halloween or Christmas is part of the political correctness trend. While it is frustrating, I just hope things don't go further. If we continue down the road we are on, the elimination of holidays will be the least of our worries.

[Demonic Duck]

It is sad to hear such a thing. My wife is a school librarian at a PreK-8th school this is her first year at the school. Actually it is a "new school"(short story it's an inner city school that was closed last year and reopened this year with a new plan and a new staff to hopefully do better). Since my wife asked about doing a pumpkin pals with all the teachers(same as grim reaper exchange) she now found herself in charge of Halloween! The teachers are going to all donate $15 to buy a bunch of pumpkins so the kids can go pick pumpkins in the playground and every kid gets to take one home since most of the kids won't ever get to go pumpkin picking. There will be a standard parade. They are even having 7th and 8th graders who are expemplary get nominated by their teachers to help out. They realize that not everyone supports Halloween so they are having those kids go someplace else where they will do non-Halloween related Autumn activites. All great things. However what bothers me is the principal who is NOT into Halloween(not against just not into it) cut off the activities at 3rd grade! I don't know about your schools but schools in my area always did Halloween up until 5th grade(Although we have elementary schools to 5th grade and then middle schools for 6-8). My wife tried to explain that this was not the norm but got shot down. I feel bad for the kids who are being robbed of 2 years of Halloween in school but I don't think the principal is going to bend on this issue.

[NeverMore]

Makes you wonder if now is the hayday of Halloween. We're older so we have the money to spend. We grew up trick-or-treating, and celebrating Halloween in school so we like to celebrate now by decorating our houses and going to parties. What's it going to be like in 40 years now that kids are no longer being indoctrinated into the Halloween way of life? Will Halloween just fade away?

[Murfreesboro]

My youngest is now 15 and in high school, but all my kids attended a grade school where the children had a "book parade" every year on or around Halloween. This was K-6th graders. The only restriction was that they had to carry the book from which their character came. However, this was interpreted quite liberally. My daughter often wore a conventional witch costume and carried a Harry Potter book. She wasn't really dressed like a character from the HP series. The teachers & administrators would costume, too, and theirs always came from recognizable stories. It was festive and tied into the learning, in a way. Nobody was particularly uptight about it.

That same grade school used to teach a smidgen of Spanish in each grade, and there were indeed a few parents who would object each year to their kids' hearing about the Day of the Dead. I thought that was pretty silly, but there were always alternative activities for those kids in Spanish class.

Quite strange that the school in that article banished Halloween as a "religious" holiday. The only people for whom it is truly religious are the Wiccans, I think. is it possible that the people in that community are afraid of Wiccans/

[Demonic Duck]

That's a great idea my wife(a school librarian) would probably love it.

[writerpatrick]

It's not Halloween that's the holy day, it's the two days following it. This sounds like the work of a single individual with personal opinions that's controlling it.

[Pumpkin_Man]

I agree. Halloween, all though it is actualy a religious observance for some people, is really just a fun day of costumes, jack o'lanterns and fun. 'Political Correctness" has made it "offensive" to even say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Easter" any more. Now they have to go after Halloween, and there's a group who claim that celebrating Thanksgiving is offensive to Native Americans. I was taught that Thanksgiving was a day that the pilgrims and Native Americans got together and celebrated a feast of Thanksgiving.

And "religious holiday or not," what ever happened to our constitutional right of Freedom of Religion? Freedom of Speech? Freedom of Expression?

Mike

[Demonic Duck]

You still have all those freedoms Mike though when they argue it's a religious holiday it falls under separation of church and state. Though those have never been that particularly separated in the past or it wouldn't say "In God We Trust" on all our money. Don't get me wrong I believe in God but that never seemed that separated to me.

[Murfreesboro]

My understanding is that the notion of "a wall of separation between church and state" comes more from a letter written by Jefferson than from the Constitution. All the Constitution does is guarantee that the state won't impose any particular religion on anyone. It doesn't say that you can't have any community expression of religion in a public place.

Back in the 18th century, the primary "religious" problem the Founders were thinking about was the divide between Catholics and Protestants. There had been wars fought in Europe & in England between Protestants and Catholics, and in England there was something called the Test Act, which said that you couldn't hold public office unless you communed in the Anglican Church at least four times a year. This requirement meant that, in England, you couldn't hold public office if you were Catholic, nor could you do so if you were one of the more extreme Protestant ("non-conformist") sects. The Founders were trying to get away from all the religious litmus testing that had gone on among various groups of Christians in the generations preceding their own. (Several of them were also more welcoming to members of the Jewish faith than people were in England at that time.)

What we have today is essentially a state-enforced atheism in public places. I think even Jefferson, who may have been the free-est thinker among the Founders, would be shocked by what is going on today.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Our Constitution very clearly states that the state may make NO LAW establishing an official state religion nor hinder the free practice thereof. That being said, the government is supposed to build our roads, educate our children, protect our boarders from foreign and domestic enemies and regulate our air traffic. The Church is supposed to teach us about God and worry about our salvation. I do not want any religion, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or otherwise running the government, and I not want any government, federal, state or local running the Church.

Right now, the government is more or less mandating a state anti religion of atheism, and are hindering people from practicing their beliefs through the concept of 'political correctness,' and by tieing up all the courts with lawsuits against towns putting up manger scenes in their fire houses, or posting the 10 comandments in their court houses. Incidently, our entire legal system is based on the 10 comandments. We have laws against murder, stealing, lieing under oath. We have laws that will grand a divorce based on adultry. We have social security, medicare for the elderly (Honor they father and thy mother) and we even close down all our state, federal and local public services on Sundays. (Thou shalt keep holy the sabbath.)

Mike

[NeverMore]

Well said Mike. I think I said it before, I believe that atheists now have an agenda of spreading their beliefs, in a sense, making them no different than religious folk.

[Murfreesboro]

Well said Mike. I think I said it before, I believe that atheists now have an agenda of spreading their beliefs, in a sense, making them no different than religious folk.

I agree.

[Pumpkin_Man]

They do have such an agenda. I have two brothers who are die hare agnostics. I don't necesarily agree with them on their views against organized religion but at least the agnostics recognize everyone elses rights to their own belief system. Athiests want to force everyone to think, act and live the same way they do. They say that when some one prays, he or she is talking to themselvs, and that anyone who believes in any kind of a diety is gullible and stupid. They get right in your face if you say anything against their belief system, but they won't tolerate an entire community wanting to put up a manger scene in a public place, or to recite any public prayers.

Mike