Friday, October 22, 2004

The Political Correctism Run Amok Files: School District Suppresses Halloween

Got Spells?
The State of Washington, notorious for its liberal tendencies, has set yet another paradigm for the Liberal Universe. ABC News is indicating that schools in a large district (20,000 students) are canceling Halloween this year. District spokeswoman Karen Hanson indicated that Superintendent Dr. Tony Apostle of the Puyallup School District made this decision for three reasons:
  1. Halloween Parties and Parades waste valuable classroom time.
  2. Some families cannot afford costumes, and the celebrations thus can create embarrassment for the children.
  3. Halloween celebrations and children dressed in Halloween costumes might be offensive to real witches.

The "spokeswoman" indicated that, "Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan [The modern name for a type of witchcraft.-EdWonk] religion and so we want to be respectful of that."

The EdWonk finds this to be asinine. Here at The Education Wonks, we have always tried to avoid using terms like "barking moonbats." But on this occasion, we just can't help ourselves. This really is too much, so we won't bother to address the first two "reasons," and only examine the third, which we suspect is the real purpose behind this suppression.

Aren't liberals the ones that are always saying that there isn't enough tolerance in the world? What about the rights of 99.99% of kids that are not believers in Wicca to make a political statement about witchcraft?

Reliable sources have informed us that 94.8% of real witches will be voting for George Bush, so of course anything that might influence young people into not declaring themselves to be Democrats when they register to vote must be suppressed in Washington State.

And what about the Goths? Aren't they too a belittled and downtrodden minority? Isn't the suppression of Goth-like clothing an infringement on a child's right to express him or her self and make a political statement about the Undead? Or are Goths prohibited from wearing their distinctive black apparel on Halloween in order to avoid insulting those that sleep in coffins and have allergies to garlic?

Canceling Halloween because it would be offensive to real witches would be like canceling Christmas because it offends elves and fat people.

This is the sort of nonsense that causes the public to collectively "roll their eyes." (Except in Washington State, where the moonbats will continue their barking.)