Perspective: Easter Bunny Banned in District Schools

News Item:

"The Indian River School District’s concern over issues of religious expression in the schools — a matter discussed and debated for the past three years — reached new heights this week when officials mandated on Tuesday that no school in the district can host or celebrate the Easter holiday with egg hunts, candy or the Easter Bunny, etc.The recommendation was made at the suggestion of the district’s administrative superintendent, Susan Bunting, on strong advice from attorney Jason Gosselin. It follows a recent partial legal settlement, announced at last month’s school board meeting, that was an attempt to bring the district’s policy on religion “more in line with the U.S. Constitution” after two Jewish families filed suit claiming the district had pursued pro-Christian policies."

Exactly what does the Constitution say about this?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Wow! That is a new one!! Celebrating a religion is equal to Establishing a religion! Letting the Bunny into the school is tantamount to the government establishing a religion? How scaring can it get? But hey, if the Jews are so upset, why not give their “Jewish Bunny” equal time? Oh, by the way, did you know that Easter is not even mentioned in the Bible?

This would be hilarious and just the stuff for Saturday Night Live, if it were not so serious. But the Controllers and kill-joys just can’t leave us alone. As Ronald Regan would say, “There they go again”!

Let me ask you to imagine that you knew nothing about Easter and then were told that every child believed that they if they put fancy baskets in the right place on a designated night in Spring then a bunny rabbit could lay decorated eggs in them and put candy in, as well. You are correct! You would surely want to ban such a practice straight away to prevent the child from growing up a complete loony. And what if they wanted to bring that filled basket to school to show their friends? Oh, my God!!!

If Easter is not found in the Bible, then where did it come from? Now, wouldn’t this be a perfect question for school children to ask? Is it too much to ask that a school board president, a superintendent, a principal and a teacher know that we live in an age when we have all the knowledge the entire world has ever known right in the palm of our hand where in a matter of minutes we can learn the truth about any subject? And would not this be the perfect time to have the kids use the I-phone they have glued to their hands and get them to stop texting with it long enough to look up the origin of Easter?

When I heard about the controversy over the celebration of Easter, I immediately grabbed our I-Pad to look up the origin of Easter, and in about three minutes found the following, which I quote verbatim:

“Spring is in the air! Flowers and bunnies decorate the home. Father helps the children paint beautiful designs on eggs dyed in various colors. These eggs, which will later be hidden and searched for, are placed into lovely, seasonal baskets. The wonderful aroma of the hot cross buns mother is baking in the oven waft through the house. Forty days of abstaining from special foods will finally end the next day. The whole family picks out their Sunday best to wear to the next morning’s sunrise worship service to celebrate the savior’s resurrection and the renewal of life. Everyone looks forward to a succulent ham with all the trimmings. It will be a thrilling day. After all, it is one of the most important religious holidays of the year.” Easter, right?

“Wrong This is a description of an ancient Babylonian family—2,000 years before Christ—honoring the resurrection of their god, Tammuz, who was brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife, Ishtar (after whom the festival was named). As Ishtar was actually pronounced “Easter” in most Semitic dialects, it could be said that the event portrayed here is, in a sense, Easter.”

“Of course, the occasion could easily have been a Phrygian family honoring Attis and Cybele, or perhaps a Phoenician family worshipping Adonis and Astarte. Also fitting the description well would be an Israelite family honoring the Canaanite Baal and Ashtoreth. Or this depiction could just as easily represent any number of other fertility celebrations of death and resurrection—including the modern Easter celebration as it has come to us through the Anglo-Saxon fertility rites of the goddess Eostre or Ostara. These are all the same festivals, separated only by time and culture.”

In other words, this yearly event has been celebrated for thousands of years by nearly every group on the globe as a fun time. The timing connects with the ending of Winter and the beginning of new life at Spring. So why not celebrate with all the humans on the planet who have done so for millennia?

The problem is worse in the first six grades. First the schools dropped recess and found that the boys had to be given Ritalin. Then the Christmas tree was tossed out of the school, and now the Easter Bunny must go. How boring do we want our elementary schools to be? If the kill-joys are permitted to go on like this, children will have no fun in school at all! Hasn’t anyone noticed that our kids spend more time texting than having fun with other kids doing silly things such as playing tag, decorating Christmas trees and showing off their Easter baskets? And you wonder why the drop out rate is high? As Sherlock Holmes would say: “It’s elementary (school) dear Watson.

How about this for an answer for the school board president? If these controllers won’t let your school teach religion, maybe they will permit you to teach history? If our schools are truly interested in educating our children (versus indoctrinating them) but cannot teach anything about religion, why not let them teach that mankind has been celebrating the spring equinox for as far back as history has been recorded? Moreover, is it too much to ask that our teachers, administrators and school boards have enough courage and be creative enough to get around these “controllers”? Now, here’s an idea!! Replace the word Easter with it’s ancient (i.e. historic) predecessor, Ishtar and go right on with the Ishtar bunnies, Ishtar eggs, Ishtar baskets and Ishtar egg hunts!