Can’t somebody just think about the children witches?
Puyallup schools ban Halloween festivities
School Says Halloween Disrespectful to Witches
There will be no dressing up and no tricking for treats in the Puyallup school district this year. They’ve decided to enforce a rule that’s been on the books for a few years. No Halloween celebrations will be allowed because it is offensive to witches.
Assistant Superintendent Tony Apostle advised Puyallup principals in a memo last week that Halloween costumes and parties are now banned. Pumpkins and cornstalks are fine, he said, but witches, black cats or “similar decorations that are intended to frighten or scare individuals” are not.
Halloween is a religious holiday for Wiccans, the memo noted, and its celebration in mainstream culture has generated unsavory images that might offend real-life witches.
“Building administrators should not tolerate such inappropriate stereotyping (images such as witches on flying brooms, stirring caldrons, casting spells, or with long noses and pointed hats),” Apostle’s memo states.
How do the Wiccans respond? It seems they don’t care. The caricature witch is an ingrained part of the commercial holiday and even if they don’t like it much they’re pretty resigned to it. Pete Davis, pastor of Aquarian Tabernacle Church thinks it’s a bit more nefarious than that. He sees it as a move of the religious right to get rid of a holiday with roots in paganism.
(Tip credits to David Newman, Robert Dudley and Jason Trommeter)
Sorry pastor. Only the religious LEFT (liberals) would be stupid enough to enforce something like that
Hypersensitive?
Not everyone likes Halloween. Gotta confess, it’s not my favorite holiday, either. But the kids have fun, right? But a school district in Washington has children witches?” href=”http://zerointelligence.net/archives/000217.php”>canceled Halloween - beca…
That’s gay. It’s just a fun night for little kids to wear costumes and go trick or treating. We dressed in costumes at school when I was a kid, but that was before this nation was taken over by conservative zealots and PC liberals. Both are responsible for the ruination of this once great land.
Via email Brenda commented that this smells suspiciously of liability issues. Essentially, letting kids be kids might offend somebody and lawsuits are the only thing that schools truly fear.
Should teachers be required to educate children? After all, that might offend the NEA!
Isn’t the image of Santa Claus offensive to Christians celebrating the supposed birthday of their savior?
How about the Easter Bunny?
Aren’t historians offended at “presidents’ day”, rather than George Washington’s birthday and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday?
Aren’t people offended at “people might be offended if…” excuses?
Has anyone thought about whether we should even be celebrating Halloween in school? What is the purpose of school? Is it to recognize every religious holiday, whether mainstream or off-the-wall? Or is it to teach the children? Halloween has been a horrible time for schools for years. Have any of you ever been in an elementary school on Halloween? How much learning do you think gets done? Good riddance to this non-holiday.
Remember… if you recognize any religion and celebrate it in taxpayer paid for schools, you must recognize all religions. Even those you fundamentally find offensive. This offense on a state-supported religion (Christianity in all its various guises) is just starting. If you think Wiccan is bad — wait until the Islamists start suing and running for school boards.
1. No Halloween festivities. (religion)
2. No birthday cookies or cupcakes. (health)
3. No Christmas programs. (religion)
4. No statements that could be perceived as offensive on clothing. (various groups’ rights).
5. Dress codes & uniforms (discipline).
6. No soft drink machines in schools (health and caffeine addiction).
If this community truly wants Mr. Apostle to protect the District from potentially offending the Wiccan community, well, ….OK, but perhaps parents should stir this pot. Do we ban Harry Potter? I’ve heard “Where’s Waldo?” has pagan, dark images that have no place in public schools.
Are we becoming too PC? Sure we are, but, beyond keeping worship services & other illegal activities out of public schools, let’s let our local school boards draw the lines where things are gray. I agree with Barry that we’re off course when the focus deviates from teaching children, but there’s nothing wrong with individual communities differing on the details.
How about this for an idea? Let’s get the government out of the education business altogether and give the parents back the tax money that is extorted from them to pay for schools they DON’T want, and set up some kind of scholarship program or charity schools for kids whose parents can’t afford a decent PRIVATE school for their kids.
Either that or give parents a choice as to where they want to spend their money — the local public school or a private school. My guess is that many of them would flee the public schools in droves if they had the choice, considering the PC garbage, homosexual indoctrination prevalent in many schools today, thanks to such organizations such as GLSEN, Planned Parenthood sex education courses, a remarkable disrespect for Christianity and Western culture in general, and of course, idiotic zero-tolerance policies enforced by unthinking “cover-my-ass because my career is more important than some poor kid’s future” public school lackey.
Puyallup bans Halloween costumes
That sort of makes sense — we can’t really piss off witches now that we can’t burn them at the stake — but doesn’t our national fetish for consistency demand that we ban actual living children from school because they might make zombies feel badly …
Ouch. We all seem very anti-public school here. Which is horribly horribly bad in my opinion. Lets be against the parents who go up to the principals and tell them, “My child shouldn’t recieve a detention for slapboxing, its part of his cultural heritage”
Lets be offended at people who sue the school because of the “trauma” their daughter expirienced hen she was given the option of wearing a loaner shirt over her innappropiate halter top(innapropiate according to the school dress code which all students sign before classes start) or go home.
Lets be offended at the parents who transfer their children out of public schools because the learning enviorment was innapropriate.
I am sorry but I did the private school thing and it was horrible compared to the education I recieved at my “ghetto” public school.
There was no belittlement of religion (other than the fact if one religion was repesented they had to be chosen) and the only problems I ever encountered with “zero-tolerance” were the drug dogs who on occassion would search the school and get some kids in trouble for having medicine in their back pack. However most of the time these could could be released with a slap on their wrist.
Back to the point of halloween however. It might seem a bit PC, but if someone dressedup as Jesus would you be offended? If they wore a plastic wreath of thorns on their head and paraded around wouldn’t you think that was a little low.
Most wiccans have learned to ignore the common association with wiccans, but those who don’t might be thankful for the no witch rule.
And as a side note, “That’s gay.” yes it is indeed a happy time when human beings remember to be considereate towards others.
“Lets be offended at the parents who transfer their children out of public schools because the learning enviorment was innapropriate.”
You’ve got to be kidding, right?
I don’t think she’s kidding.
I suppose she’s offended at me, as I’m a parent who chose to homeschool her children.
Carissa, I’m curious on where you learned to spell. Was it the public or the private school?
Carrisa:
The kids don’t willingly agree to the dress code, and neither do the parents. The kids agree to the dress code, or they get kicked out of school, their parents get thrown in prison for truancy, and the kid gets sent to a foster home.
On second thought… maybe Carrisa was being facetious. Lets examine this…
“and the only problems I ever encountered with “zero-tolerance” were the drug dogs who on occassion would search the school and get some kids in trouble for having medicine in their back pack. ”
Oh, is THAT all? You had better not be serious, or my faith in humanity will have plummetted.
Except this isn’t a Wiccan religious holiday, it’s a pagan one, that is no longer celebrated as such (not ot mention I don’t think there are any practicing pagans anymore). For the Wiccans (and the roots of the holiday for the pagans) it is merely a celebration of a celestial event, the same as Christmas, and Easter (or there-abouts) are. The solstaces and equinoxes of the seasons are deemed high ‘magic’ events by the Wiccan community, points where the power of the cosmos waxes and wanes like the moon and the tides. To qualify it as anything else might also just as well be deemed offensive… it sure is to me (and I’m not even Wiccan).
I think that it’s great that they’re enforcing that rule, you people may not care, but it’s a religion to us! now because of all this advertising and stupid costumes people think that we’re evil and have long pointed green noses and faces with warts!!!! it’s those people like you that ruin everything for us!! sorry that that may seem harsh but it’s true and i’m really offended.