North Carolina Public School Students Banned From Caroling At Nativity Celebration

                School children in Wake County, North Carolina will no longer be allowed to sing Christmas carols at an annual Nativity celebration after they were the victims of a complaint from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The execrable FFRF claimed that the performances at the annual Apex Christmas Nativity Celebration were unconstitutional and could not continue.

                “The whole purpose of the event is to display and honor nativity scenes, which highlight an exclusively Christian aspect of the holiday season, rather than a secular Christmas celebration,” FFRF attorney Patrick Elliot wrote in a complaint to the district last year. Elliot was gob-smacked that “students are intentionally brought to the church to be exposed to hundreds of depictions of the Christian legend of Jesus’ birth.” (Sounds like he couldn’t be more upset if the kids were being intentionally exposed to the Zika Virus. A Christian “aspect” to the “holiday season” is intolerable? There wouldn’t be a holiday season if not for the Christian aspect, and a secular Christmas celebration is, in a sense, an oxymoron, is it not?).

                Naturally, the school district decided it would be best to ban all student choirs from participating in this year’s celebration.

                The Freedom from Religion Foundation said it sprang into action only after a complaint from a “concerned parent.” One? One. Elliot told the Raleigh News and Observer, “Public schools are a place for all students regardless of religious belief or non-belief. To have public schools involved in a Christian event celebrating the birth of Jesus is a problem.”

                Then why is it okay for Muslim students to wear hijabs to school (and this even as other students have to remove their hats!). Glad you asked. Well, Tracy Flynn Bowe, executive director of human resources for the St. Cloud, Minnesota school district, says that that right is protected by federal law. She avers that students across the nation have a right to religious accommodations for a sincerely held belief, observance or practice consistent with their faith tradition.

                Apparently, Christian kids celebrating the birth of Christ…at Christmastime…don’t qualify as having a sincerely held belief, observance or practice consistent with their faith tradition.