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DEAN'S LIST - 3/23/2008
(by Dean Naddeo - OpEd Columnist - March 23, 2008)
While Easter is still ‘Easter’
For the time being, Christians across America are still being permitted to celebrate Easter as a holy occasion, not just as a generic “holiday” that has been callously watered down in the name of political correctness. But if certain activist groups have their way, it won’t be long before this most sacred of festivals suffers the same fate as Christmas has in recent years.
The attempted secularization of the Easter ritual is already surfacing in the terminology that now accompanies the holiday. Just as the traditional “Christmas break” has been reduced to “winter break,” most districts are now referring to “Easter break” simply as “spring break.” And in some places, children are eagerly lining up for a chance to meet the “Holiday Bunny” or “Peter Rabbit.” Oh yeah, those wonderfully frantic Easter egg hunts that we once enjoyed as kids – you guessed it – are now just plain old “egg hunts” in some of the more progressive circles. These seemingly minor deletions are not harmless. Instead, they have a long-lasting and detrimental impact on the religious significance of these holidays.
Incidentally, any efforts to obliterate the religious importance of the holiday by ceasing use of the term “Easter” is ironic, since historically speaking, the Easter tradition is less about Christianity and more about the celebration of spring. If the self-righteous instigators of change did a bit of research, they would learn that the word “Easter” is actually of pagan origin, probably derived from Eastre/Ostara, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility.
On a larger scale, a number of malls and stores across the nation have taken to removing all references to Easter from their seasonal displays – all for the sake of what they call “neutrality.” It is incredibly disturbing that such places are eager to commercialize religious holidays for the sake of profit, but are simultaneously willing to deny their significance.
Some cities and towns have also jumped on the bandwagon, for fear of “offending someone.” Maybe it’s the Christians – you know, those people who make up about 75 percent of this great nation – that should be highly offended by these policies. Non-Christians should also be very concerned about the activity of groups that aggressively lobby against religious freedoms – their own liberties might be the next under attack.
Sadly, there are organizations in existence that simply won’t be happy until the entire Christian universe is wholly sterilized. This is readily evidenced in the elimination of school prayer, eradication of the Ten Commandments in public places, and frequent vilification of this religion by the liberal media.
Ironically, these grievances usually originate from the same “open-minded” groups that fervently champion the concepts of equality, individual rights and religious tolerance – ideas that must not apply to the 159 million Christian adherents nationwide.
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