Christmas no longer exists in the Montgomery County school district in Maryland.
Kyle Olsen reports for EAGnews, Nov. 12, 2014, that the school district is stripping Christmas from its official calendar after Muslim parents complained. So the school board voted 7-1 to stop recognizing Christian and Jewish religious holidays. Although the schools will still have holidays in December, they will now be called “winter break” and “student holidays,” instead of Christmas and Yom Kippur.
But that isn’t enough to satisfy Muslims who demand recognition of and “parity” for the Muslim holiday of Eid.
WTOP reports that Saqib Ali, co-chair of Equality for Eid, says, “Equality is really what we’re looking for. Simply saying we’re not going to call this Christmas, and we’re not going to call this Yom Kippur, and still closing the schools, that’s not equality.” CAIR isn’t happy either. Its representative Zainab Chaudry complains that “What’s really concerning to us is that similar conditions weren’t placed on any other faith community.”
According to NBC 4, school employee Samira Hussein has campaigned for 20 years to have the Muslim holiday added to the school calendar, saying “The Eid is just the same exact as Christmas day or Easter day or Yom Kippur.”
Michael Durso
School board member Michael Durso says unless the Muslims’ complaints are addressed, the district “comes off as insensitive, and I just think we cannot afford to be in that light.” Blah, blah, blah.
Durso is a former principal of four successive public schools. His phone no. is 301-924-3169; email address is [email protected].
Here’s contact info for Montgomery County public schools’ Board of Education:
President: Philip Kaufmann
850 Hungerford Drive, Room 123
Rockville, Maryland 20850
Tel: 301-279-3617
Fax: 301-279-3860
Email: [email protected]
~Eowyn
