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Posts tagged ‘War on Christmas’

Georgia School Confiscates Christmas Cards


http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2013/12/03/georgia-school-confiscates-christmas-cards-n1756579

Todd Starnes | Dec 03, 2013

Todd Starnes

When boys and girls returned from Thanksgiving break, they discovered that their teachers’ Christmas cards had been removed – under orders from the Georgia school’s administration.

Robb Kicklighter’s wife is a third grade teacher at the school. He said many teachers are disgruntled by the school’s decision to confiscate the Christmas cards.

“They took down the cards so the kids can’t see them,” he told me. “Some of the cards had the word ‘Christmas’ and some had Nativity scenes.”

Kicklighter said the cards were put behind an office door so only teachers could access them.

“It’s really sad because the students looked forward to seeing those homemade Christmas cards every year,” he said. “It’s stirred a lot conversation. This has been a tradition and the kids are wondering what happened to the cards.”

The Christmas card censorship comes as the Bulloch County Board of Education cracks down on religious expression in their schools.

Teachers have been ordered to remove any religious icons or items from their classrooms – ranging from Bibles to Christian music.

Teachers have also been instructed to avoid student-led prayers at all costs. Should they be in a room where students are praying, teachers have been ordered to turn their backs on their students.

“It’s an attack on Christianity,” Kicklighter said. “It seems like every time we turn around, someone is offended.”

Hundreds of outraged residents have joined a Facebook page to protest the crackdown – and many are vowing to attend a school board meeting on Thursday to let school officials have a piece of their mind.

The Board of Education released a statement noting that there are “established legal requirements to which we must adhere.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Todd StarnesTodd Starnes is the host of Fox News & Commentary – heard daily on 250+ radio stations. He’s also the author of “Dispatches From Bitter America.” To check out all of his work you can visit his website or follow him on Twitter @toddstarnes. In his spare time, Todd is active in his church, plays golf, follows SEC football, and eats barbecue. He lives in New York City.

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When Christmas was more religious, the social statistics were far better, and the nation was happier and more in love

Written on Thursday, December 6, 2012 by

jesus

As I watch the Christmas specials on television, it’s kind of sad to see all the songs being hyper and about snow and reindeer and winter. It’s sad because I remember decades past when there was a feeling of beauty in the carols and in THE story of Christmas.

But as I had to turn the channel because of just one more offensive song on the Sing Off Christmas (not so) Special, I turned it to a “Charlie Brown Christmas” (with the music written and performed by my cousin Vince Guaraldi) and was surprised to see the story line being Charlie Brown looking for the “true meaning of Christmas” that ended up being the Bible’s story. The credits said that this show was made in 1965. My, how times have changed.

But let me now back up the title of my article here … not just with personal memories … but with real data.

First of all, the fact that the nation was happier and more in love is easily proven by comparing the music of today with the music of the pre-1966 decades. This is also true for the movies and television shows, including their Christmas specials, all of which included religious songs and themes. In fact, many might be surprised to know who the overall #1 television personality of 1952 was. Bishop Fulton Sheen won the 1952 Emmy Award for “Most Outstanding Television Personality” … even over the comedians, musicians, hosts, actors and politicians. In the 1950s he was not only a very prominent TV “star,” his television program, “Life is Worth Living,” became the No. 1 program on the national networks. The “star” of Texaco Star Theater, Milton Berle was known as “Mr. Television” at the time, and Bishop Sheen topped him.

Here are some other differences between the Christmases when I grew up in the 1950s to 1960s and today.

  • My last job before embarking on a music career was as a mail carrier. That was in 1969 where I grew up in San Francisco. In those days, and in every year I was alive previously, Christmas was so popular that during the Christmas season there were TWO mail deliveries every day because of the huge amount of Christmas cards being mailed.
  • In San Francisco public schools we sang religious Christmas songs.
  • In the San Francisco public schools we had “Christmas Vacation,” not Winter Break. (I keep mentioning San Francisco because if the now most liberal city was that way, you can imagine what the rest of the country was like.)

And just to show the general respect for religion in the country back then:

  • There was prayer in the public schools (which set a nice tone for the day).
  • Christian historical events were in the public school history textbooks.
  • Television started in the morning with religious shows on the only three networks (“Lamp Unto My Feet”, “The Christophers”, etc.)
  • Stores were not open on Sundays.

One of my main motives for writing has been that I personally experienced that a society that honors God more is a happier and more loving society. (That’s also been true in my personal life). But for measurable proof, here is a comparison of the statistics between recent and past decades, when following God was more popular.

 (1) Violent crime: 1995 = 11.1 x 1957 and 18.5 x 1937

(2) Divorce rate: 1990’s to 1900 = over 100x (0.5% – 50+%)

(3) Overall crime: 1970= 12.25 x 1937 and 6.68 x 1957

(4) U.S. teen suicide rate is higher than the other 26 industrialized nations combined (gun suicides are 11 times greater than the average of the other industrialized nations, and dramatically rising – 62% since 1980).

Had a person fallen asleep in 1960 and awaken today, this is what they’d have found strikingly different in the United States:

• Doubled divorce rate

• Tripled teen suicide

• Quadrupled rate of reported violent crimes

• Quintupled prison population

• Sextupled percent of babies born to unmarried parents

• Sevenfold increase in cohabitations (a predictor of future divorce)

• Soaring rate of depression to ten times the pre-World War II level, by one estimate.

Finally, from a personal perspective, we all carry some fond feelings from our past … some fonder than others. For many years (even when I wasn’t religious at all), the fondest memory that I carried was of a feeling of love and beauty that entered my heart when I remembered a life-sized nativity scene that was tucked away under a cave-like alcove in the lower courtyard of the Catholic school I attended in the third grade. Now that I am religious, it is obvious to me Who infused that feeling of beauty in my heart.

Byline:

For Dennis Marcellino’s books and bestselling Christmas music: www.LighthouseBooksAndMusic.com

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