Sunday, October 26, 2008

Halloween at Public School!


Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where Halloween is Holy unto the Bored Gods and Goddesses! All glory, laud, and honor to the holy day that has survived from the Old Time Religions!

Every year around this time, the Christian Wrong starts moaning and groaning about the fact that public schools celebrate Halloween, but they do not celebrate Christmas or Easter or St. Patrick's Day ......... ooops!

Okay, you get the gist. Halloween, is not a holy day to "evil occultists," but rather to good, sweet, law-abiding, tree-hugging Druids and Wiccans, as well as a huge contingent of Hispanic Roman Catholics.

Isn't celebrating this occasion at school a violation of church and state?

Well, it would be if even one school teacher sat down with the class and explained in detail the history and religious meaning of Halloween. But that's not usually (if ever) the order of the day. School Halloween parties consist of kids showing off their wonderful costumes and harried moms handing out cupcakes, popcorn, candy corn, Juicy Juice, potato chips, pretzels ... oh, it goes on and on! Trust me, I've been there.

No one even tells kids who dress up like wicked witches that witches aren't wicked, nor do they wear black pointy hats. Nor does anyone point out to the kids done up like Satan that there's nothing Satanic about Halloween ... wrong pantheon.

All the same, I'll concede to the Christian Wrong that public schools devote an afternoon every year to a Pagan holiday.

My solution to this terrible, monstrous, obscene, unacceptable practice? Simple.

Make October 31 a religious holiday, like December 25.

Wouldn't you love that, Pagans?

Not only would you not have to work on the most holy day of the calendar, you could also expect many, many questions from kids as to why Halloween has suddenly become a day off school! A win-win situation! Think of the parties! The family togetherness! The establishment of traditions, like Halloween brunch!

So I'm with the Christians on this one. Halloween is a religious holiday. Let's accept that, snatch it off the school schedule, and make it what it should be: HOLY. But still fun! Trick or treat!

11 comments:

Maeve said...

From your lips to the Goddess' ears!

KrisMrsBBradley said...

The area I live in is mostly Catholic and Jewish, and there is no problems here with celebrating Halloween in school. Change it to an actual holiday, and then there would be a problem, lol.

I'd love to be able to get my kids out of homework on the pagan holidays like some people get out of homework on their holidays in my district!

Hecate said...

Sounds good to me. I take off early as it is.

yellowdoggranny said...

west is mostly catholics and baptists. and there is no one that goes all out for halloween than west..it's a huge deal...we have a halloween row of booths giving away candy, the volunteer fire dept. gives away candy..and even the methodist church had hay rides and took all the kids trick or treating and last year we had a full crew of kids coming in for free books and candy...thank the goddess for sweet lovers in my town.ha..
and wow, i'd love it if halloween were made a religious holiday...

Alex Pendragon said...

The reason we will never get Halloween as a religious holiday is that it's not another excuse to worship JESUS! "Mommy, what did Jesus do on Halloween?" "Uh, I dunno, kid.........trick or treat?"

democommie said...

Actually, the Cath-O-Licks do Halloween and then All Saint' Day on 11/1 (a "Holy Day of Obligation"--ya gotta go to church) and All Souls' Day on 11/2. I grew up in that myth and usually was too busy gorging myself on sweets to pay much attention to the fear and trembling crap.

Unknown said...

hey then let's go for all of them, 'cause really, i hate getting up so early to get my kid to school. how about May Day too. Also Imbolc (it's so cold that time of year anyway, really really hard to get up). and the Fall equinox and the spring one. Mix that with the jewish holidays which we here in west by gawd virginia don't get off anyway, and the school year is lookin' pretty good!

Pom said...

Planning what to do with the vacation day, but in the mean time I've tagged you.

Athana said...

Totally, exquisitely BRILLIANT! Mark my words, my dear: you're going to go down in history for this. O, grand establisher of the Holy Holiday of Halloween, we salute you!

Cat C-B (and/or Peter B) said...

Actually, there's no problem with a teacher sitting kids down and explaining the history of Halloween--or any religious holiday. There is no Constitutional problem with teaching about religion or religious history in a public school. What is not permissible is teaching the practice of a religion or advocating a particular religion (or religion at all, for that matter).

As for taking our religious holiday, well, any employer that permits employees to take holidays for one religion must permit them to take them for all. In my part of the country, it is routine for Jewish kids and teachers to miss school at Rosh Hashanah and Passover, for instance (and the remaining teachers are warned not to plan tests or other hard-to-make-up events for those days). And I will be taking Halloween off, as a religious holiday, myself this week, from my public school.

Of course, I did wait until my fifth year of teaching (ie, when I had contract protection) to do so. (Up to this year, I scheduled medical procedures for Halloween, so I could honestly take one of my sick days for the holiday instead. I'll admit, Novocain, etc. did dampen my holiday cheer somewhat.)

I waited til I had union protection, in other words. 'Cause I know my rights... but I also know human nature...

Dawtch said...

My five year old didn't get to go to a "Halloween Party" at school - it was a "Fall Party"...
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dawtch