Stealing Christmas: First The Grinch, Now Oak Lawn, Illinois

I wonder how Barack Obama would look in green skin. Since Senator Obama represents the people of the state of Illinois, I think David Gregory or another of those media smart-asses should ask him how he feels about Oak Lawn hijacking Christmas from their school children this year and giving them instead Winter Festival

Oak Lawn's School District is doing this so that Muslims attending their schools won't be offended by the observation of Christian Holidays. This decision involves 4 elementary schools in Oak Lawn, and 1 junior high school in Bridgeview. It also involves the issue of insensitivity to Muslims. I say that if Muslims are hurt because we in this country celebrate Halloween and Christmas, why are they here? This is America, and these traditional holidays are what's celebrated here. This doesn't involve hate crimes or loss of civil liberties or racism or any of the other uglies usually discussed when issues of insensitivity arise. What it does involve, however, is penalizing American citizens who outnumber Muslim citizens by restricting traditions we've come to enjoy and expect to be celebrated in this country. I mean, this goes beyond rolling out the red carpet to immigrants. This amounts to handing them the keys to the house, the checking account, and Aunt Maude's silver while we go hide in the basement.

The Oak Lawn school district has a 30% Arab-American population. That means 30% of the people who live in this area get to dictate what 70% of the people may or may not do as far as celebrating traditional American holidays in their schools. Halloween will now be celebrated as Fall Festival and Christmas will be addressed as Winter Festival. That means it's likely that Easter will become Spring Festival.

This is bullshit, and we should not stand for it. Being a melting pot does not include abandoning our own traditions and holidays. If Muslims want to get their burqa's up over their heads over what is (or was, before they got here) considered normal school activity, then might I suggest they attend some diversity training so that they come to understand what it means to get along with people who were here long before they were. That and developing a thicker skin would go a long way toward solving these petty problems that really aren't problems at all but are merely power plays to test our system.

I for one am tired of being expected to extend the hand of friendship to those who are interested in having me pull back a bloody stump. I wouldn't dream of going to a Mosque and expecting or demanding that they put on a Christmas pageant and have a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony just for me. Why then do immigrants to this country expect us to change our traditions to suit them?

Makes me want to holler.