Oklahoma Republicans Push To Get Religion Back In Public Schools
Forgetting that little thing called the First Amendment, Oklahoma legislators are behind legislation that would allow public schools to teach about Christmas and Hanukkah and observe “traditional winter celebrations.” Forget letting families teach their kids about religion. Here we can impose a religious nanny state. It’s called the “Merry Christmas bill,” not the “Happy Hanukkah bill.”
Two bills, HB2316 and HB 2317, “permit school districts to display on school property scenes or symbols associated with traditional winter celebrations,” which the co-sponsors of the bill define to mean Christmas and Hanukkah. The language also states that any religious scene must also depict at least one other religious or secular icon.
“The purpose of the Oklahoma Merry Christmas bill is to put a beacon of light, a safe harbor, if you will, in the pages of statutes so that our children … and our parents can run to a lighthouse whose light shines boldly on the pages of Oklahoma’s law books and declares that they have a right to express their core beliefs and celebrate winter traditions without fear of lawsuit, retribution or reprisal,” said Rep. Ken Walker, R-Tulsa, during a Capitol press conference.
Otherwise they’d have nowhere else to go to “express their beliefs,” right?
