Bopping off the Easter Bunny: No need to scrub religion from the public square
ABC News recently reported that a Rhode Island public school district superintendent named William Rearick demanded that those organizing the appearance of an Easter Bunny as Tiverton Middle School rename the performer Peter Rabbit “to be conscious of other people’s backgrounds and traditions.†A state legislator has responded by introducing an “Easter Bunny Act.â€
As an atheist, I see no reason why we can’t call an Easter Bunny what it is. After all, WHY is “Peter Rabbit†making his appearance at this particular time of the year? Are the youngsters not supposed to know it’s connected to Easter and its traditions? Perhaps they will just have to whisper to each other what the reason is. Indeed, an odd thing about this is that while Easter is a specifically Christian holiday, the Easter Bunny is a perfectly secular tradition that grew out of it much like Santa Claus and his reindeer. Perhaps a truthfully labeled Easter Bunny could spark and interesting and informative discussion for the children about how religious traditions lead to secular ones.
It does no harm to those who celebrate neither Christmas nor Chanukah to see nativity scenes and menorahs at December. Crosses and reproductions of the Ten Commandments may be appreciated for their cultural and historical value.
We live in a country that guarantees religious freedom. People can practice any religion they wish to or they can choose, as I do, to practice no religion at all. However, this does not mean and should not mean that we must rigorously scrub all religious symbols, or even things as tangentially connected with religion as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, from the public square.
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Stumble It!
April 9th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Excellent points, Denise. With regard to “scrubbing” symbols (religious or otherwise), the difference always points to who is allowed to do the scrubbing. On private property, that answer is simple — the owner does.
Unfortunately, the “public square” arguments always boil down to who it’s OK to threaten into submission. Some will say it’s the atheists who cannot tolerate Christian symbols. But then many of those Christians will not tolerate symbols that offend them in that same “public square”. So do they want offensive symbols allowed or not? (Expect from both camps total hypocritical jibberish emerging from their asscracks at this point) Obviously, getting rid of public schools solves the problem without any pesky self-contradictions. Not to mention making it a budget-conscious school system.