“Crystal’s Soapbox,” published each Thursday, is a column by conservative Texas mom Crystal Arcand who loves to rant about issues that relate to her kids….and yours.
I’m one of those “weird” people that doesn’t celebrate Halloween, so I don’t like it being in my children’s schools. Just like I don’t like Christmas and Easter being in the schools. Huh? Yes, I’m a Christian. Yes, I celebrate the birth and resurrection of Christ with my children. At home though, not at school. I don’t want any religiously-originated holidays in schools. I firmly believe that every family has the right to believe and celebrate whatever holidays they choose in the ways they deem are best for them. It is not the right, nor even the privilege, of the public school system to expose children to holidays and to “just be kids at school” – regardless of what their parents believe.
Parental rights and respect for parents are nullified with the approach that “anything is okay, as long as it’s at school.” These subtleties encourage children to be less respectful of their parents and hand more control over citizens to the government. Children are being trained to look to the government for values. When children are taught that the history and origins of holidays don’t matter and that the holiday can be embraced and celebrated despite the parents’ teaching, they are also taught that their parents’ teachings don’t matter and that they can do anything the government sanctions, despite the rights granted to the parents by the Constitution. Look to the Patriot Act to see it already in action.
Over 200 years ago, the United States government was established to create freedom for all citizens to believe, worship and celebrate according to their individual convictions, and to protect citizens from being proselytized in the governed forum. As a government-run system, the public school system is in place for the purpose of academic learning, not spiritual or religious learning. The separation of church and state provides for spiritual and religious learning in the home, church, or church schools. The public school system should be devoid of any religion, whether Christian, Pagan, Wiccan, Buddhist or Muslim. I am a Christian that believes our Wiccan, Buddhist and Muslim citizens have just as much right to not be exposed to the Nativity as we have the right not to be exposed to Halloween, Buddha or Mohamed.
You also have the Constitutional right to completely disagree with me in the comments – just remain civil and respectful, which is what it’s really all about anyway.
