Other Letters
While I'm on the subject of letters to the editor.....
The other letter in yesterday's Whig was equally if not more interesting than the latest board member soundoff. The last time I was at the QHS Vespers, I wondered then how the music department people got away with having such a blatantly religious event as a school activity, with school employees, on school grounds. I found the overt religiosity of the evening quite offensive, knowing that my tax dollars were at work engaging in a sectarian celebration....especially since I could look at the stage and see Jewish kids, Muslim kids, Hindu kids, all required to perform as part of their music classes. Boy, talk about having to sing King Alpha's song in a strange land! Now I know how they get away with it.....they just do. And they assume no one would risk the wrath of all those faithful school music alums by complaining or filing a lawsuit.
There isn't even a pretense of making it a "holiday" concert by including any songs about Hanukkah. There are a few secular Christmas songs, of course, but the whole evening is overwhelmingly a Christian celebration. It's offensive.
The other letter in yesterday's Whig was equally if not more interesting than the latest board member soundoff. The last time I was at the QHS Vespers, I wondered then how the music department people got away with having such a blatantly religious event as a school activity, with school employees, on school grounds. I found the overt religiosity of the evening quite offensive, knowing that my tax dollars were at work engaging in a sectarian celebration....especially since I could look at the stage and see Jewish kids, Muslim kids, Hindu kids, all required to perform as part of their music classes. Boy, talk about having to sing King Alpha's song in a strange land! Now I know how they get away with it.....they just do. And they assume no one would risk the wrath of all those faithful school music alums by complaining or filing a lawsuit.
There isn't even a pretense of making it a "holiday" concert by including any songs about Hanukkah. There are a few secular Christmas songs, of course, but the whole evening is overwhelmingly a Christian celebration. It's offensive.
posted by Allthenewsthatfits at 9:26 AM
9 Comments:
Maybe you should write a letter to the editor.
Of course the difference (as we learned in Wisconsin when I was in high school) is that much of the religious Christmas music is also a cultural statement and thus NOT "expressly" religious in nature. But then those Wisconsin folks seem to have their heads on pretty straight. :)
As a music person, if you banned the singing of religious music in school choirs, you'd ban 3/4ths of the repertoire.
4:18, you are correct of course, and much Christmas music is indeed a cultural statement and not expressly religious in nature. But I'm afraid the letter-writer in Wednesday's paper captured the spirit of QHS Vespers much more accurately. The religious/cultural scale is tilted more in favor of "In This Very Room" and away from "Hallelujah Chorus."
True enough....but then the title of the program should be a big clue.
Vespers is, after all, a religious term ("evening prayer" they called it when I was an Episcopalian).
IIRC the decision by the Wisconsion Supreme Court (on the suit brought by Anne Gaylord, I think) was that religious music could not be banned from concert programs, but there had to be other appropriate holiday music as well. Christmas concerts were specifically mentioned--so in Wisconsin anyway you had to have "secular" Christmas music as well as religious. I remember we did a couple of Hanukah arrangements my senior year--they were pretty fun in that "Ha va nagila" way. :)
I'm stuck on how you tell a kid is a Hindu by just seeing him/her. Was it just the one not eating beef jerky or what?
Know their folks, see 'em at parties, that sort of thing.
wow!! You found the overt religiosity of the evening quite offensive.... You found Christmas vespers offensive. Well, isn't that just too bad. As one in the majority and who is tired of a small group of elite people telling the rest of us how to celebrate Christmas. Just ignore it, go to work on Christmas day and shut the fuck up or move to Iran. Those were my tax dollars at work too. And I'm damn sure there was more of my tax dollars at work than yours. Twerps like you frost my balls.
Thanks to a fellow American (I assume) for stopping by to exercise his or her First Amendment-guaranteed right to an opinion.
8:08. Everybody give this cock a round of applause! He's rich!
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