A Christmas tale of suits and boycotts

Last Tuesday, the Alliance Defense Fund -- a Christian legal group founded by religious-right minister James Dobson -- posted on its Web site a letter and news release warning the Jackson County, Ga., schools to lay off Christmas.

The group said it had learned that the 6,000-student district northeast of Atlanta prohibited teachers from wearing angel pins, banned references to a "Christmas" party, removed some Christmas songs from a seasonal concert, took the word "God" out of another song, prohibited classroom Bibles and art with angels or nativity scenes, and banned the greeting "Merry Christmas."

The Christian law group offered to educate the school system about religious rights. But, warned senior counsel David Cortman, "When necessary, we litigate these issues."

Within 24 hours, Superintendent Andy Byars had digested the faxed letter -- along with a small flood of incensed e-mail from around the Internet denouncing, sometimes in offensive terms, his schools. His head was spinning because, he said, almost none of the claims were district policy.

"They could have picked up the phone and said, 'Could you respond?'" Byars said. "Instead, they sent out erroneous information."

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usholi1205,0,5045607,print.story?coll=ny-nation-big-pix

Talk about succinctly hoisting the bullshit banner for all to see!

It sooo reminds me of Al Franken´s Lying Liars.... where Republicans won´t do the basic research; they just react.

the school took the time to examine and explain ALL the December holidays? When I taught school and preschool, that's what we did. We played the dreidel game for Hannukah, sang carols for Christmas, and learned about the Sema and the whirling dervishes, and how Kwanza is celebrated. I was just about to get into the Solstace celebrations when I quit teaching, but if I still were I would have included it as well.

He would call that "politically correct repression of the Christian majority". Then he would kick his dog.

Jackson Co. is a formerly very rural county which is rapidly suburbanizing. It is mostly white with a very few black residents. There has been a recent influx of Hispanic immigrants.

There are lots of churches, small towns, poor and middle class folks, pit bulls (I've been chased by a few while doing engineering field work there!)modest houses and mobile homes and farms in Jackson county. In other words, a normal Northeast Georgia county.

The school simply wanted teachers not to wear things like "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" sweaters but they are OK with Christmas sweaters. In other words Christmas is OK but proselytizing at school is not. No big deal.

I can't believe these wackos are picking on Jackson County. You can't drive more than a few miles without passing by a church.