Anonymous wrote:Why stop at religious holidays? What aboout Thanksgiving - can I be offended because I am vegetarian? 4th of July? MLK?

I am Italian - should I complain that some of our not so popular, but still important religious holidays aren't on the calendar?

What was so great about the US was the melting pot that it was. Now it has gotten so ridiculous with trying to accomodate everyone's personal preferences. Why not hire some more Muslin, Jewish, etc teachers and keep school open when it is typically closed for Christmas and Easter? Give them the 10 days to take during their religious celebrations. Because right now, it is all about making sure you have a religious voice and not about what makes the most sense. Pretty soon we will be dealing with a PTO system where all students are allotted a certain amount of days of each year for religious purposes.

I think it is a ridiculous decision based on fear. We are looking at a new middle east.....

MCPS took the names of religious holidays off the calendar, which nobody was asking them to do, including the Muslims who were asking for the calendar to list Eid along with Yom Kippur next year, and you conclude from this that we're looking at a new Middle East?

Why stop at religious holidays? What aboout Thanksgiving - can I be offended because I am vegetarian? 4th of July? MLK?

I am Italian - should I complain that some of our not so popular, but still important religious holidays aren't on the calendar?

What was so great about the US was the melting pot that it was. Now it has gotten so ridiculous with trying to accomodate everyone's personal preferences. Why not hire some more Muslin, Jewish, etc teachers and keep school open when it is typically closed for Christmas and Easter? Give them the 10 days to take during their religious celebrations. Because right now, it is all about making sure you have a religious voice and not about what makes the most sense. Pretty soon we will be dealing with a PTO system where all students are allotted a certain amount of days of each year for religious purposes.

I think it is a ridiculous decision based on fear. We are looking at a new middle east.....

Nobody is removing any holidays. The students will still have the same days off.

What's really absurd is that the same people who complain every single year in this forum that MCPS closes for two days of Jewish holidays are now upset that the public school calendar doesn't tell them when Christmas and Easter are.

Anonymous wrote:Well since they are removing all holidays, I sure hope our school counselor doesn't ask for wrapped Christmas presents for SES kids this year. Isn't that a little too religious?

What is an "SES kid"? My kid's parents have an SES, your kid's parents have an SES -- does that make your kid and my kid "SES kids"?

But yes, wrapped Christmas presents are for Christmas, and Christmas is a religious holiday, and I don't think that the school counselor should be doing that.

Yes..it actaully is!

Well since they are removing all holidays, I sure hope our school counselor doesn't ask for wrapped Christmas presents for SES kids this year. Isn't that a little too religious?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can always go back to the middle east if they want their holiday-they need to learn "when in Rome.....".

You are really ignorant if you don't know that our country was founded on freedom of religion. IGNORANT!

Actually, more like freedom to choose your own Christian denomination, or none at all, and not have the federal government favor, say, episcopalians over methodists or quakers or catholics. The US constitution was most certainly NOT written with Islam in mind or in any way influenced by it. The founding principles of the US, and of western civilization, are solidly judeo-christian. If they were islamic, in all likelihood any celebration of christian or jewish holidays would be BANNED.

In all likelihood none of us would be here-well except the Muslims that is. Once we cave it will be all over!

Guys, for heaven's sake, can you stop making the residents of Montgomery County seem like bigoted fools?!? Stop with the racist ethnocentric crap!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can always go back to the middle east if they want their holiday-they need to learn "when in Rome.....".

You are really ignorant if you don't know that our country was founded on freedom of religion. IGNORANT!

Actually, more like freedom to choose your own Christian denomination, or none at all, and not have the federal government favor, say, episcopalians over methodists or quakers or catholics. The US constitution was most certainly NOT written with Islam in mind or in any way influenced by it. The founding principles of the US, and of western civilization, are solidly judeo-christian. If they were islamic, in all likelihood any celebration of christian or jewish holidays would be BANNED.

I've never met a Judeo-Christian. What do they look like? What kind of card do you send them in December?

Anonymous wrote:

Because it is a phony secular holiday set up in the '60s in opposition to mainstream american culture?

What makes a secular holiday authentic vs. phony? How long must a secular holiday have existed for it to be un-stupid? Would it be ok if the phony secular holiday were set up in support of mainstream American culture?

Anonymous wrote:

Do you see the difference now??

Nope, still don't. Christmas is a holiday that was made up many hundreds of years ago. Kwanzaa is a holiday that was made up a few decades ago. They're both made-up holidays.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, but it's an African one, and we must remove race and culture from the picture, too.

b/c you know . . . we're all just human beings

Kwanza is most certainly not an 'African one', you best Wikipedia that one, you are in for a bit of an education on the absolute stupidity of that 'holiday'.

You're right that Kwanzaa isn't an African holiday, any more than Christmas (for example) is a European holiday.

But I honestly don't understand why Kwanzaa is stupider than any other holiday (Christmas, for example).

Because it is a phony secular holiday set up in the '60s in opposition to mainstream american culture?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, but it's an African one, and we must remove race and culture from the picture, too.

b/c you know . . . we're all just human beings

Kwanza is most certainly not an 'African one', you best Wikipedia that one, you are in for a bit of an education on the absolute stupidity of that 'holiday'.

You're right that Kwanzaa isn't an African holiday, any more than Christmas (for example) is a European holiday.

But I honestly don't understand why Kwanzaa is stupider than any other holiday (Christmas, for example).

Too lazy to do you homework eh…??

Because Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus which is considered by many an event of religious significance and is most holy to them.

Kwanzaa was fabricated by Ronald Everett an Anti-American ‘cultural nationalist’ Marxist who had his thugs murder two dissenting Panthers in 1969. He then went on to kidnap, strip, whip and beat Deborah Jones and Gail Davis for perceived offenses to the cultural-nationalist cause. Then came the soldering iron. The torture went on for two days and finally they were released. In 1971 the law finally caught up with Ron and off to prison he went. Fast forward to 1998, Ebony magazine brought Kwanza mainstream by featuring its creator and we learn Ron created it to “celebrate ‘us’ as opposed to our oppressors” (from the man who had two men killed and tortured two naked women for two days mind you). And thus we have Kwanzaa. Later in a WaPo interview Ron offers a moment of clarity regarding Kwanzaa; “People think its African, but it’s not. I came up with Kwanzaa because black people in this country wouldn’t celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that’s when a lot of bloods would be partying.”

Do you see the difference now??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can always go back to the middle east if they want their holiday-they need to learn "when in Rome.....".

You are really ignorant if you don't know that our country was founded on freedom of religion. IGNORANT!

Actually, more like freedom to choose your own Christian denomination, or none at all, and not have the federal government favor, say, episcopalians over methodists or quakers or catholics. The US constitution was most certainly NOT written with Islam in mind or in any way influenced by it. The founding principles of the US, and of western civilization, are solidly judeo-christian. If they were islamic, in all likelihood any celebration of christian or jewish holidays would be BANNED.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, but it's an African one, and we must remove race and culture from the picture, too.

b/c you know . . . we're all just human beings

Kwanza is most certainly not an 'African one', you best Wikipedia that one, you are in for a bit of an education on the absolute stupidity of that 'holiday'.

You're right that Kwanzaa isn't an African holiday, any more than Christmas (for example) is a European holiday.

But I honestly don't understand why Kwanzaa is stupider than any other holiday (Christmas, for example).