Omaha School Board Member Wants Winter Break Renamed ‘Christmas Break,’ Has Choice Words For Atheists


An Omaha school board member wants to rename his school district’s winter break to “Christmas Break,” and he has some choice words for any atheists who don’t like his idea: “they can crawl back into their hellhole.”

As the Omaha World-Herald reports, at a school board meeting Monday night, Millard School Board member Paul Meyer said he is disappointed that a break on the school’s calendar for Dec. 25, 2017, through Jan. 5, 2018, wasn’t named “Christmas Break.”

“[I am] a little bit tired of a minute minority in this country that keeps pushing Christmas out, keep pushing God out, keep pushing Christ out, when the majority is still a Judeo-Christian country.”

And if any of the students, parents, or taxpayers in the Millard School District should have a problem with that, Meyer knows just what they can do.

“I would like to make a motion that we rename this period Christmas break, and those atheists who don’t like it can crawl back into their hellhole, because I, for one, will not put my Lord, my God, aside for a few atheists. And if they don’t like it, the ACLU doesn’t like it, the heck with them.”

Despite Meyer’s impassioned pleas, he found no support in the other members of the Millard School Board; neither of the other three school board members seconded his motion, and the vote to keep the planned winter break on the calendar — without a specific name — passed 3-1, with Meyer voting no.

Omaha atheists
Since any name is going to be offensive, just don’t name it at all. [Image via Shutterstock/enciktepstudio]
Board President Mike Kennedy later said that even though he and the other board members are “very religious” people, their religious beliefs don’t have a place on a public school’s calendar.

“I do know, as a Catholic, I have no problem the way the calendar is. I celebrate Christmas. I know other people on this board do too. People are free to celebrate what they want to believe. I don’t think anyone’s trying to take away Christmas from any child.”

Board member Mike Pate offered similar sentiments.

“I, too, am tired of the political correctness that seems to be circulating in every part of our lives today. And you know what, I still say ‘Merry Christmas.’ I still say ‘Merry Christmas.’ If it offends people, I apologize for that. I’m not doing it to offend people. But I’m a Christian.”

Public schools and their administrators often walk a fine line when it comes to respecting the religious beliefs of the children and their parents, while at the same time avoiding any actions that appear to be supporting religion. This is especially true when watchdog groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation appear to be watching their every move.

For example, in February 2015, according to this Inquisitr report, a West Virginia junior high school unexpectedly found itself in hot water with an atheist group after a monument to a popular teacher ran afoul of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Joann Christy had taught at Ravenswood Middle School in Ravenswood, West Virginia, for 26 years until she was killed in a car accident in 2004. After she died, the community raised money to erect a stone memorial to her at the school’s entrance. The memorial honored Christy, who was a devout Christian, with crosses and angels etched into the stone. Unfortunately for the school, the atheist group contended that those symbols on the school grounds effectively amounted to the government endorsing a religion, and demanded that it be removed.

Do you think public schools’ winter breaks should be renamed “Christmas Break”? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Image via Shutterstock/JeremyWhat]

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