Bill O'Reilly - the voice of Bill O'Reilly
Everyone's fair and balanced loofah fetishist is at it again - not the loofah thing, as far as I know. He couldn't help but jump on the developments here in Hillsborough County, where the school board decided to remove several religious holidays after a girl stood in front of the council requesting a day off for a Muslim holiday.
There is a lot to completely dislike about Bill O'Reilly. There is a lot to dislike about Bill O'Reilly specifically in regards to this story. Allow me to dwell on one specific aspect.
O'Reilly's argument is that this country is 85% Christian (and I certainly count myself as a member of that particular statistic), that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, therefore having these Judeo-Christian holidays in place in public schools is completely okay. That means leaving holidays of other religions off the school calendar okay as well. Basically, if you're going to live under this roof, you'll live by our rules. Predictably O'Reilly tosses in a little Red scare by saying that what the school board did is akin to what they do in Cuba. Cuba!
Well, here's the thing: denying someone their freedom of religious expression is not exactly all-American. Oh, but they can practice all they want in their own places of worship, blah blah. But not giving these children a day off on days considered as holy to them as Christmas is to Christians is a form of restriction. Nevermind the fact that Christmas means absolutely nothing except celebration of America's true religion, capitalistic spending. Pretending like these days mean nothing while sending them home on days that mean nothing to them is in essence a form of religious endorsement. The Constitution spells this out clearly. I don't see anything about a Judeo-Christian monopoly.
Solution? I think the school board's decision is a decent one. Yes, it might send a poor message to Muslims already fighting hard to separate themselves from the extremists that mean us harm. But by eliminating most all religious holidays, they are saying, "Your religion is no more or less important than anyone else's." Taking these holidays out is not going to damage the true traditions of Easter and Christmas any more than the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and general commercialism already have.
Maybe the idea of floating holidays - popular in the workplace - is one that should be considered. On top of the government holidays, allow a set number of days that can be used for whatever meaningful days children choose to celebrate. This idea is already included in the school board plan to replace the holidays that are being eliminated. Maybe we should expand it. To have some sort of control over it, the school board could sanction specific days on which those days can be used. Anyone else have any ideas? I'm trying to remember that the worst form of criticism is criticism without solutions.
Alright, one more thing about O'Reilly - character assassination? Nevermind the idiocy of the term - it's a good thing nobody on the right has ever resorted to that sort of behavior - Swiftboat - I'm sorry, did I sneeze?
Posted by Joel at 11/04/2005 01:35:00 AM
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