Texas School Bans Santa, Abolishes All Holiday Gestures From Premises
Parents of children in Fort Worth, TX schools have the holiday blues after school officials told them Santa could not visit classrooms this year.
Fort Worth’s independent school district will not even allow children the opportunity to exchange gifts with classmates.
“We have people of different races and religions and to them this particular time of year may not be celebratory,” said school district spokesperson Clint Bond to Fox News. “Because of their religious beliefs, they may not choose to celebrate anything at this time of year.”
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Nevertheless, some concerned citizens are wondering about families who do celebrate Christmas.
Robert Jeffress, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, told Fox News: “America is a Christian nation. It’s time for Americans to stand up and push back against this increasing encroachment upon our First Amendment rights.”
Bond told Fox News that "in an effort to be politically correct” teachers would not be allowed to “post something that would foster or promote or impugn one doctrine or religion over another, or even give that impression.”
District Attorney Bertha Bailey Whatley sent a memo to school teachers and administrators regarding the legal concerns: “The school district cannot prohibit the distribution of unsolicited religious material directly to students if it allows other personal messages to be distributed during school activities held during the school day."
Thus, administrators have allowed for these exchanges and occurrences to happen, as long as they do not occur during instructional time.
Brandon Brewer, a parent with three children in Ridglea Hills Elementary, wrote an email to The Star-Telegram.
"In their effort to be [politically correct], they've achieved the absurd. They’ve taken legality out of the equation insisting that holiday traditions (secular or religious) are suddenly too much of a distraction, and besides, if we let Santa in, maybe a Voodoo Witch Doctor will want to visit the classrooms, and gee, we’d have to let ‘em.”
