O Come, All Ye Fanatics: California Teacher Wants To Require Christmas Carols In School
Merry Christmas, Miss Hyatt, but lay off the constitutional separation of church and state!
When I was six, the Christmas pageant organizer at our neighborhood church offered me a Little Golden Book for every carol I sang. I loved to read and considered that quite a deal. Unfortunately, my repertoire at the time wasn’t very large, but I still managed to score three books!
I still like Christmas carols myself, but I know that not everyone does. This is an incredibly diverse nation, and a lot of people don’t observe Christmas.
That why a new ballot proposal being pushed in California is so crazy.
Merry Susan Hyatt and her allies are circulating a petition that would require every public school to “provide opportunities to its pupils for listening to or performing Christmas music at an appropriate time of the year.”
Hyatt, a 61-year-old substitute teacher from Redding, is incensed that some schools in the state don’t allow religious carols at Christmas.
“These kids, they need it,” she said. “They need to see that we believe in Jesus, and He is the Prince of Peace. That’s why we are the best country on Earth.”
And what about non-Christian children?
Hyatt said she hasn’t run into many of those, and students who object can opt out and go sit in a separate room.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a Jewish child in one of my classes,” she told The New York Times. “If so, they never said anything.”
We shouldn’t worry too much about Hyatt’s proposal going on the ballot. It requires 464,000 signatures to secure a spot, and she’s unlikely to round up that many.
But we should worry about the sentiment Hyatt’s crusade represents. Here’s a woman who’s so tone-deaf to American pluralism that she thinks everyone should be forced to enjoy Christmas whether they want to or not.
Consider her a kind of reverse-Scrooge. “You don’t want to sing ‘Silent Night,’ child? Off to a workhouse with you!”
I really can’t think of anything that is more contrary to the real spirit of Christmas than this petition. Peace of Earth, goodwill to all? Hardly.
But you know Hyatt is not alone. The grim-faced legions of the Religious Right are already out there, constructing Nativity scenes on the courthouse lawn and demanding that store clerks say “Merry Christmas” and not “Happy Holidays.”
I dread having to participate in the “Christmas wars.” The “love Christmas or else” crowd always tries to make those of us who oppose their joyless work look like Grinches, and I fear they sometimes succeed.
But when presumptuous Californians unveil projects like this one, what can you do?
Merry Christmas, Miss Hyatt, but lay off the constitutional separation of church and state!
PS: Maybe for Christmas someone should buy her a copy of Americans United’s new book Religion in the Public Schools.