The
metaphor "The War on Christmas" can be mocked - as if Santa and his
reindeer are dodging anti-aircraft fire. But many of our public schools
have church-and-state sensitivity police with an alarming degree of
Santaphobia. Anyone who's attended a school's "winter concert" in
December with no traditional Christmas music - not even "Frosty the
Snowman" - knows the drill. The vast Christian majority (that funds the
public schools) is told that school is no place to celebrate one's
religion, even in its most watered-down and secularized forms.
There are real-life stories of Scrooge-like school administrators,
like the one at the appropriately named Battlefield High School in
Haymarket, Virginia. A group of ten boys calling themselves the
Christmas Sweater Club were given detention and at least two hours of
cleaning for tossing free two-inch candy canes at students as they
entered before classes started. They were "creating a disturbance." One
of their mothers, Kathleen Flannery, told WUSA-TV that an administrator
called her and explained "not everyone wants Christmas cheer. That
suicide rates are up over Christmas, and that they should keep their
cheer to themselves, perhaps."
Of course, that level of sensitivity is not applied when it comes
to slamming Christianity during the Christmas season. On December 16, The Washington Post paid tribute [1]to
another suburban school in northern Virginia, Langley High School, for
warming hearts during the season with "The Laramie Project." This play
is a political assault, using transcripts of real-life interviews by
gay activists out to blame America's religious people for the beating
death of homosexual college student Matthew Shepard in 1998.
The Post championed how in the play, "there is a Baptist minister
who says he hopes Shepard was thinking of his lifestyle as he was tied
to the fence...There is a young woman who grew up in the Muslim faith
in Laramie and thinks the town and nation need to accept what the case
has laid bare. 'We are like this,' she says."
This account actually underplayed what the character "lays bare" -
a guilt trip. In the script, she says "there are people trying to
distance themselves from this crime. And we need to own this crime.
Everyone needs to own it. We are like this. We ARE like this. WE are
LIKE this." (Emphasis by the playwright, Moises Kaufman.)
That attack keeps coming. A Catholic priest insists the killers
"must be our teachers. What did we as a society do to teach you that?"
A character also reads an e-mail from a college student: "You and the
straight people of Laramie and Wyoming are guilty of the beating of
Matthew Shepard just as the Germans who looked the other way are guilty
of the deaths of the Jews, the gypsies, and the homosexuals. You have
taught your straight children to hate their gay and lesbian brothers
and sisters - until and unless you acknowledge that Matt Shepard's
beating is not just a random occurrence, not just the work of a couple
of random crazies, you have Matthew's blood on your hands."
This is vicious anti-Christian propaganda, plain and simple. Any
teaching that homosexuality is a sin is an invitation to murder? These
mudslinging culture warriors are celebrated as compassionate by
administrators, while just down the road, the Christmas Sweater Club is
given detention for spreading Christmas cheer.
The Langley High students putting on this play are candid. They are
trying to walk people away from the Bible. "I hope that this changes
some people's perspectives on gay rights and maybe opens their minds a
little bit," proclaimed Lauren Stewart, 17, the student-director. "I
think the way to progress on issues is to talk about them." Another
student added, "If one person comes into the theater and is on the
fence about...any discrimination and leaves questioning their beliefs,
I think we've done this play justice."
Making people "have conversations" is presented as glorious. But it
wouldn't be a constructive conversation if students were trying to
convert people to Christianity - only when you try to convert people away from it.
A little research shows plenty of "socially conscious" public high
schools have staged this propaganda bombing, aiming to crush biblical
"discrimination." But it takes a really special school administrator to
let it be scheduled in the last two weeks before Christmas. It's
amazing that at Battlefield High School, the accusation was that
Christmas cheer invited suicides, but plays about murderous "hate
crimes" that America has collectively committed by our "fear and
ignorance of the Other" somehow should make our spirits bright.
