To: Rambi who wrote (14421 ) 12/23/1997 10:21:00 AM From: Grainne Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Penni, I had not read your post to Del when I wrote mine to you. I guess that I AM in favor of forbidding Christian music at schools during the holidays. This is NOT the law of the land, incidentally. The legal guidelines to this date for the most part just insist that religious music is balanced with other kinds of carols. I am not sure that I think it is necessary to ban Christian music entirely forever, but when we can agree to teach American school children that what they are really celebrating is pagan and has to do with the coldness of the season and the end of of the year, and that Christ was most likely born in the spring and that there was no celebration of his birth for several hundred years, but that in order to make Christianity more popular his birthday was added to what was already a very rich seasonal celebration, and that the lights and candles, trees, holly, ivy, mistletoe, feasting and exchanging of presents are all from non-Christian belief systems, then I will feel that the holiday is balanced and inclusive enough so that I can simply not listen to the religious words and enjoy the musical presentation anyway.
