Some people just don’t get it.

Christianity is a wonderful religion. But it’s not the only religion. Too bad they don’t know that at Erwin Middle School.

Pardon me while I take license to fictionalize this little scenario, just for clarity. Imagine if it was Rudy Goldstein, a teen-age tenor who sings like Pavarotti, that was accepted into the school chorus. And his friend, Kalila Mohammad, who sings soprano like Sarah Brightman, also joined the chorus. He’s Jewish. She’s Muslim.

Remember, this is a “public” school, supported by taxpayers of all faiths and non-faiths.

In preparation for a concert, the school’s music director unwisely chose a program in which six of the nine songs would be faith-based and exclusively Christian, i.e., “Pie Jesu,” “Did My Lord Deliver Daniel,” etc. The assumption could only have been that it would greatly please Christian singers and a Christian audience, and everyone else can go jump in the lake.

With thousands of musical pieces from all over the world to select from, why songs of religious context are plucked for a public school concert boggles the mind.

Rudy and Kalila protested, saying that Christian songs were against their individual religious teachings. They asked that the program be non-sectarian. “Too bad,” rebuked the school administrators. “We’ll cut it down to four religious songs. But Christians make up the majority here. You’ll sing those Christian songs or get out of the chorus.”

Hmmm

That’s what has happened at Erwin, only the child’s name was Shana McNelly, and her religion - paganism. I fictionalized the scenario slightly because the term “pagan” immediately conjures up a negative image to the practitioners of social myopia, the same as agnosticism and atheism. On go the blinders.

Well, take off the blinders folks. Everyone in the nation is free to worship as he or she pleases or not worship at all. Without prejudice!

For Shana, it went further. After the two songs were removed from the program, she and her mother became the target of pure harassment by students and other parents, threatened with violence and subjected to spontaneous choruses of more religious music for no other reason than to haunt them.

“Bye Bye Pagan, get out of here,” they chanted as the child sought refuge in a counselor’s office. We’ll show you! Na Na Nana Na.

Mighty Christian of those folks.

School officials did nothing. So do statues.

The school principal, Andy Peoples, defended himself with a real gutsy remark: “... as a public school principal, I can’t tell people what to think.” Really? Then why allow religious music in a public school forum?

Duh.

What would happen if all the Muslims and Jews of western North Carolina, and the pagans as well, commandeered the school auditorium at the next concert and treated the Christian audience with a barrage of their respective religious chants?

You would walk out? Well, of course. That’s what Jesus would do. Or, would he?

And so, the same old ignorance rears its ugly head once again, people bound and determined to jam their chosen religion down the throats of people who don’t share the same beliefs. Kids go to school 35 hours a week, leaving the remaining 133 hours for synagogues, mosques and churches, or to be indoctrinated in their homes with whatever religious teachings their parents wish. That’s plenty of time for God without using tax-funded school hours that are targeted for academic learning. After all, pagans and atheists pay teachers’ salaries as well, with green money, just like Christians. So, the best and only way to resolve the issue is to keep religion out of public schools altogether. Simple as that.

Parents who want their child to have a religious experience in their academic setting are at liberty to sign them up in private schools.

What many schoolroom ignoramuses don’t understand is the horrible vise these kids experience if they happen to be “different” than the majority. All kids, by nature, need to feel they belong, and the powerful peer factor renders most non-Christian students mute. Shana McNelly should be admired for her courage.

I learned of being different the hard way. At age 11, I didn’t realize carrying a violin to school was viewed as whussy until a gang of seventh-graders surrounded me one day, laughing, punching and kicking until the only thing I could taste was the grit of Florida soil in my mouth. The incident altered my world. I was not going to be different any more.

I changed. Not by choice or passion, but by intimidation.

Babies are not born with religious choice. They are ingrained from birth by environment and family programming. No child anywhere in this great nation, while in a public school, should be made to feel an outsider because of their particular faith or non-faith. And no man, woman or child should be subjected to conversion by intimidation. Those days are gone forever.

Children like Kalila, Rudy and Shana have every right to protest unwanted religious indoctrination while in public school, and those gutless school officials are dead wrong for allowing it.

Let the teachers teach and the preachers preach. Amen.

(Marshall Frank is a retired Miami-Dade police officer and a novelist. His second book, “Dire Straits,” has just been released. He can be reached at mlf283@aol.com)

 

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The Smoky Mountain News