Religious Songs Banned At Bordentown, New Jersey School District Just In Time For Holiday Season

[rug]

Star-Ledger | By Jeff Goldman
Posted: 10/30/2013 11:25 am EDT

BORDENTOWN, N.J. (RNS) Students won’t be allowed to sing religious holiday songs at winter concerts in a south-central New Jersey school district.

Bordentown Superintendent Constance J. Bauer issued a statement on Oct. 18 saying that some of the selections were questioned and that “religious music should not be part of the elementary program.”

The statement added that the district solicitor is reviewing the decision, mentioning how the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010 declined to hear an appeal of a similar situation involving another New Jersey family.

Michael Stratechuk, whose children attended Columbia High School and Maplewood Middle School, sued in 2004, saying the South Orange-Maplewood school district’s ban violated the First Amendment’s freedom of worship provision.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/religious-song-ban_n_4177694.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

While we await the initial troop deployments (the war has come early), let's listen to my favorite Advent song. So mournful.

[Turbineguy]

1. This is where you say:

"It is our Policy to have no Policy on this."

[pitbullgirl1965]

2. I don't know, I think it's kind of sad

I don't think it's promoting Christianity to be honest.

[Niceguy1]

4. I think the songs have more to do

Woth our culture these days. I loved the Christmas shkws we did at school when I was growing up. Good times.

Somestimes it feels like we are forced to supress our culture while we are told we have to.celebrate others, includeing complaints abiut Christmas vacation of all things.

[Journeyman]

3. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” . . .

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
~ Aristotle


Thanks, Rug. That was a beautiful piece. I appreciate your introducing this atheist to that duo.


All I can say about the news article is to repeat what I have asserted all my life:

I never let my schooling interfere with my education.

[LostOne4Ever]

5. This is the point where

They bring in the guy from the Conan O'Brian Show to rewrite the songs for them

[p class=post-sig style=margin-top:0px;text-align:center;]

[div style='color: #B20000;font-size: 2.000em'] [center] Not all those who wander are LOST!!! [/center]

[Goblinmonger]

6. I am torn on this.

I firmly believe that religious songs should not be removed from school programs. As a singer, I fully appreciate that a large segment of the repertoire is religious because that is who was funding people. It is important to sing those things. The Messiah is a thing of beauty not because of the words but the music.

That being said, I know from personal experience that schools will use that fact to put a bunch of Christian songs in the program in grade school. Yes, religious music is an important part of the choral repertoire but not so much for kindergarten students. If there is a balance representing a vast array of cultures I think it is fine. And, again from personal experience, that does not mean 15 songs about the baby Jesus and "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" and call it good. Did I make a stink when my kids had to sing exclusively about baby Jesus in their public school "winter" concert? No. I was raising kids that weren't going to a Christian church (we raised them UU and they have chosen a path of atheism--their mother is probably best explained as deist) and who were vegetarians in central Wisconsin, so I didn't think I needed to add that their dad killed Christmas to the list. But I did talk to them about it at home. So many people don't understand that it actually is a big deal for these kids and they do feel significantly like they don't belong when all their friends get to sing about their god to the exclusion of everyone else.

And rug, my favorite song of the season is "O, Holy Night."

[MineralMan]

7. An interesting thing to discuss.

As a high schooler, I was a vocalist, among other things. Back in the early 1960s, our Christmas programs at school included religious songs. We didn't think any thing of it, really. In my senior year, though, I was asked to provide a vocal solo for the program. I chose the Shubert "Ave Maria." It was one of my favorites, and was a good match for my vocal range. After rehearsing it with a pianist I knew, and just before the program date, I was called into the Principal's office and told I could not perform that piece of music. When I asked why, the Principal told me that it was "too Catholic." I was puzzled by this, and gave it a lot of thought. I was a Presbyterian, but was moving toward atheism for a number of reasons. Still, I had never had any problem performing religious music, and have continued to do that in my life, despite my atheism. It is music.

Anyhow, I didn't fight the ban on the "too Catholic" song, and switched to "O Holy Night." I sang it in its original French, though, as a minor protest, and was criticized for that, too, but after the performance. But, what occurred to me was that presenting religious music in a public school program was fraught with issues. That my school prohibited me from performing the music I chose due to sectarian disputes of some kind showed me that there are many choices made when religious music is part of a public school program.

Now, as to why "Ave Maria" was not acceptable, I knew the answer. My small California rural town had just one Catholic Church, attended almost exclusively by the Hispanic population of the town. Hispanic people made up about a third of the town's population. Refusing to allow a song that was identified with Catholicism was just one more way that the non-Hispanic majority exerted its control.

Religion is not a force for equality, I'm afraid. And my little story is an example of that. Today, I believe that public school functions should not include any religious content. Today, the religious beliefs of most places vary widely, and it is unfair now, as it was then, to exclude some religious expression while including religious expression that represents only the majority belief.