More on the "supressed majority"

Tom was right. Responding to Charles Krauthammer, he predicted Friday that we were "about to hear quite bit" of "the language of 'suppressed majority.'" Monday the Washington Post had this report about Evangelical Christian groups challenging decisions by public school officials, courts, and local governments regarding religious displays and expression during Christmas.

From reports like this one and from activity in the conservative blogosphere, there's a growing sense among Christian conservatives that the law and culture are aligning against them to suppress their right to religious expression. I'm somewhat loathe to give credence to this misplaced perception, but I think it behooves us to try to understand why the perception exists. Here are some thoughts and observations:

This year, at the Alexandria, Va., public school our son attends, his kindergarten class spent the week of Hanukah doing Hanukah-themed math and reading worksheets, and they've been using Christmas and Kwanzaa-themed worksheets the last couple of weeks. While Christmas trees and Santa have featured prominently in the art projects and decorations in the school's halls, official communications from the school have all used "Happy Holidays." About a quarter of the school's annual Winter Holiday Concert program were Hanukah songs, and the Christmas songs were of the "Jingle Bells" variety.

As the holiday season approached, our son's teacher, knowing that we're Jewish, engaged us about the planned curriculum and asked for our input. The school clearly makes an effort to ensure everyone is included and nobody feels put upon or disrespected, which alone makes a huge difference to us. However, I can understand why a religious Christian might still be dissatisfied. If it's okay for kindergartners to do math worksheets with menorahs on them, which are religious symbols, then why not also use worksheets with nativity scenes? If it's okay to sing about the miracle of the lamp in the school concert, then why not the miracle of Christ's birth?

As I wrote before, I believe the answer hinges on the fact that the religious aspects of Hanukah aren't offensive to Christians, where the religious aspects of Christmas specifically reject Judaism, and government-supported expression targeted at children must not appear to reject one faith over another. But I can appreciate how this might appear to some Christian conservatives.

Some situations feeding the misplaced "suppressed majority" perception are less subtle. The Post reports that a school district barred a Christian boy from giving classmates candy canes with religious tracts attached. This to me seems excessive and a clear violation of the boy's right to free expression. As long as he's not being disruptive or somehow intimidating other students, he ought to have as much right to give his classmates religious candy canes as my son has to brag about Hanukah lasting eight days, or as an atheist student has to argue against the existence of God. School-sponsored religious expression would be out of bounds, but this candy cane example is clearly private expression.

In this case, overzealous school officials went too far and stepped on this Christian child's right to religious expression. Conservative Christians were right to challenge the candy cane decision, and a court overruled the school's order. Does that mean there's pervasive, widespread hostility toward Christians in America's public schools? Not quite. While the right-wing echo chamber is busy transforming a few cases that have been rightfully challenged into an anti-Christian movement, religious minorities deal with similar and worse as a matter of course.

Last year, the D.C. public school our son then attended made no mention of Hanukah and hung a Merry Christmas banner in the main hall. Shayna and I pointed out to the principal that our son and several other children don't celebrate Christmas and asked if we could give the school a Happy Hanukah sign to hang next to the Christmas sign. The principal told us that they're "not allowed to hang anything religious" and therefore couldn't display a Hanukah sign.

In 2000, Mississippi school officials made a Jewish student remove his Star of David necklace because they considered it a gang symbol, and the all-Christian school board actually quizzed the boy's parents on their Jewishness when they challenged the ruling.

These examples aren't proof of pervasive, widespread hostility toward Jews. They just show that the majority is sometimes ignorant and clueless about the minority.