Apparently there are schools that are banning Halloween, but not for religious reasons. At least not directly. At some schools, kids are participating in Halloween-related activities, safe for the select few who can’t/wouldn’t participate for religious reasons. Because these select few feel left out, these schools have decided to just ban Halloween.
You know, I heard a story from a Jewish guy, who grew up at a school where most kids celebrated christmas, and he felt left out because he couldn’t participate. Has anyone ever banned christmas? I know I’m a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to christmas, but that’s irrelevant here. I’m merely pointing out how ridiculous this reasoning is, seeing as you might as well ban other things.
Speaking of christmas, this brings up another point: around christmas time, people would often hear “merry christmas.” But not everyone celebrates christmas. Some celebrate something called Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and many other holidays (if they celebrate anything at all), but not christmas. For them to be told to have a merry “christmas”, they felt offended. So people decided to start saying “happy holidays” instead. This way, they wish everyone a happy holiday, which ever one that might be.
This may sound unrelated, but in essence we’re talking about minorities feeling bad because of a holiday. The only real difference is that with christmas they find some kind of compromise, whereas with Halloween they decide to just ban the whole thing. Why are these people ready to ban Halloween, yet so reluctant to do the same with christmas? Why do they go through great lengths to compromise for christmas, and yet don’t even think of doing the same thing for Halloween?
If you want to be consistent, you either find a similar compromise for Halloween, or you ban christmas. Don’t ban the one and compromise for the other, you either compromise for both, or you ban both.
Desmond Scheerlinck writes... 