TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: BANNING CHRISTMAS POSTER VIOLATES FIRST AMENDMENT

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TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: BANNING CHRISTMAS POSTER VIOLATES FIRST AMENDMENT 
BY STEVE BYAS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 

“She said my poster is an issue of separation of church and state.
She said the poster had to come down because it might offend kids from
other religions or those who do not have a religion.”


That is how Dedra Shannon, an aide in the school nurse’s office at
Patterson Middle School in Killeen, Texas, explained the confrontation
she had with the school’s principal concerning the poster she had used
to decorate the door to the nurse’s office in the school, depicting a
famous scene from the traditional Christmas TV show A Charlie Brown Christmas.


In the scene, a frustrated Charlie Brown asks if anyone knows what
Christmas is all about. At that point, his friend Linus quotes the
biblical passage about the birth of Christ found in the second chapter
of Luke’s gospel, including the words, “For unto you is born this day in
the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord.” Linus then tells
Charlie Brown, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Inspired by that scene from the TV program that has run for almost
half a century, Shannon used the image of Linus, a scrawny Christmas
tree, plus the Bible verse that Linus cited, in a six-foot poster on the
door of the nurse’s office.

Across America, school nurses regularly inform young teenagers about
the availability of birth control pills, and even where they can access
an abortion, but this is the poster that is “offensive” in Killeen,
Texas?

Shannon put the decoration up on December 5; then on December 7 the
school’s principal told her, “Please don’t hate me, but unfortunately
you’re going to have to take your poster down.” According to Shannon,
the principal said it was “an issue of separation of church and state.
She said the poster had to come down because it might offend kids from
other religions or those who do not have a religion.”

The principal said Shannon could leave up the poster itself, if she removed the Bible verse.

“I just took the entire thing down,” Shannon said. “I wasn’t going to
leave Linus and the Christmas tree without the dialogue. That’s the
whole point of why it was put up.”

Shannon noted, “Throughout the school there are talks about
diversity. Well, you aren’t being very diverse if you are not allowing
the Christians to put something up that refers to a Christian holiday.”

Last year, another school canceled a stage performance of “A Charlie
Brown Christmas” because of concerns it might violate the First
Amendment to the Constitution. Or at least a judge’s interpretation of
the First Amendment. But it is highly unlikely that James Madison would
have viewed a poster of Charlie Brown as a violation of the First
Amendment, which prevents Congress from establishing a national religion.

The Killeen school administration defended the principal’s action.
“Our employees are free to celebrate the Christmas and holiday season in
the manner of their choosing. However, employees are not permitted to
impose their personal beliefs on the students. The display in question
was a six-foot-tall-plus door decoration in the main hallway of the
school building, and included a reference to a Bible verse covering much
of the door.” Horrors!

Texas Values, a non-profit advocacy group, is providing legal
representation to Shannon. In a letter the group sent to the district,
they argue that the display is no more of an establishment of religion
than the Pledge of Allegiance (which includes the phrase “under God,”
and has been upheld by federal courts).

“It’s amazing that even a quote from ‘Charlie Brown’s Christmas’ is
not even safe for some overzealous or misguided government officials,”
said the group’s president, Jonathan Saenz.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton weighed in on the controversy,
declaring the actions of the school district a violation of both the
First Amendment and Texas law.
He argued that Shannon’s display is
specifically protected by the “Merry Christmas Law,” which was enacted
in 2013 by the Texas Legislature. “We passed that law precisely because
of this type of discrimination against people of faith,” stated Paxton,
adding, “No school official in Texas can silence a biblical reference to
Christmas. This is an attack upon religious liberty.”

The “Merry Christmas Law” was a reaction to school districts and
government agencies telling employees that they could not even so much
as say “Merry Christmas” to fellow employees.

This is not the first time in history that the Christian faith in
general, and the celebration of Christmas in particular, have come under
attack by governmental authorities. In the 1930s, National Socialists
(Nazis) in Germany pushed the “de-Christianizing of rituals related to
birth, marriage, and death,” according to Klaus Fischer, writing in his
book Nazi Germany: A New History. In 1938, carols and nativity
plays were forbidden in the schools. Even the word “Christmas,”
celebrated in Germany for over a thousand years, was replaced by the
secular “Yuletide.”

One is not surprised that a totalitarian regime such as that led by
Adolf Hitler would hate the Christian faith, but it is disheartening, to
say the least, that such an attitude could prevail in the heart of
Texas.

“I’m disappointed,” Shannon said of the school’s censorship of the poster. “It is a slap in the face of Christianity.”

It would seem so. All across the country, Christian beliefs are
regularly challenged in the public schools, including beliefs about
evolution and creation, the institution of marriage, and abortion. The
Christian belief that sexual relations should be within the institution
of marriage between one man and one woman is not only ridiculed, it is
labeled as bigoted.

Of course, there are hundreds of thousands of teachers in the
country’s public schools who are devout Christians, but they are often
afraid to speak of their faith for fear of being reprimanded, fired, or
sued.

Yet, Christmas is a federal holiday. Considering that, shouldn’t
students be informed, as part of their education, just what it is that
Christians believe about Christmas? After all, without the birth of
Christ, no such holiday as Christmas would even exist. In fact, it is
very unlikely that the United States of America would even exist had not
Jesus Christ been born.

For example, teaching in a civics class what Democrats believe,
citing the party’s most recent platform, is certainly not imposing the
Democratic Party on students. Teaching what Adolf Hitler, Muhammad, Karl
Marx, or Woodrow Wilson believed is not imposing the beliefs of those
historical individuals on anyone, either.

Linus, a cartoon character created by Charles Schulz, a devout
Christian, accurately summed up what Christmas was “all about” —
certainly what Christians believe it is all about. Should school
children be shielded from that knowledge? After all, the celebration by
Christians of the birth of Christ has generated a wealth of literature
through the years, including A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss, and the poem “T’was the Night Before Christmas” by Clement Moore.

Is an explanation of what Christians believe about their own holiday,
which places such literature in context, something that should be
censored in the public schools? Is it imposing a religion to say that
Christians believe the birth of Christ is “what Christmas is all about?”

Perhaps Shannon’s father, Danny Brey, pastor of the Soliders of the
Cross Cowboy Fellowship near Fort Hood (located outside Killeen), said
it best: “People want us to be tolerant for everything but they don’t
tolerate Christianity. They bow down to everything else, but when it
comes to Christianity…”

Just as the Apostle Paul demanded his rights as a Roman citizen under
Roman law, Christians should likewise demand that they be treated
equally in the public schools, which their tax dollars financially
support.