The Patriot Post® · The Continuing Assault on American Culture

Last week in Maryland, the Montgomery County school board added its voice to the growing chorus singing the tired refrain that America’s long-held cultural traditions can be dismissed if they do not accommodate everyone. By a 7-1 vote, the board eliminated all religious references such as Christmas, Easter, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah from their 2015-2016 school calendar.

The move was made following a request from the Muslim community that has lobbied for years to include at least one of two major Muslim holidays, Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr, on the school calendar. Saqib Ali, a former Maryland state delegate and co-chair of the Equality for Eid Coalition, bemoaned the decision, saying, “By stripping the names Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they have alienated other communities now, and we are no closer to equality.” Muslim leaders were especially interested in raising the status of Eid al-Adha because the holiday falls on the same day as Yom Kippur and they considered the move an important symbolic step.

No doubt. Yet in a predominantly Judeo-Christian nation, the obvious question must be asked: How far should such accommodation go? What about Shinto holidays such as Setsubun-no-hi or Haru Matsuri? Hindu holidays such as Vasant Panchami or Pitr-Paksha? How about the Buddhist holidays of Vesak or Uposatha?

Once our prevailing culture – the one that created the most dynamic nation in the history of the world – is subsumed in a multi-culti stew, shouldn’t everyone be equally accommodated? And if not, don’t we owe the rest of the world an apology for having the temerity to insist that our prevailing American culture prevail in America?

Certainly the American Left thinks so. In fact, our apologist in chief, a.k.a. Barack Obama, has made a regular habit of apologizing for our nation’s shortcomings. Moreover, he has rendered the concept of American exceptionalism meaningless by comparing it to that of other nations. Such nonsense is reminiscent of the leftist-inspired “every kid gets a trophy” mindset that puts showing up on par with genuine achievement, lest anyone’s feelings get hurt.

That would be the same Barack Obama poised to deal the prevailing American culture its biggest body blow in history, unilaterally legalizing millions of illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are urged by the Left to “celebrate their differences” in lieu of assimilation, respecting our border, language, traditions and culture.

And make no mistake: Public schools and odious school boards like the one in Montgomery County are leading the charge. They stand in solidarity with city councils in Seattle and Minneapolis that scrapped Columbus Day in favor of “Indigenous People’s Day,” part of an effort to remind Americans about “social justice,” and what Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant called the “ongoing marginalization, discrimination and poverty that indigenous communities face to this day.”

Again, such cultural assaults are nothing new. In 2012, students at Capital High School (CHS) in Charleston, West Virginia, were forced to stand during the Black National Anthem (Lift Every Voice and Sing), played every morning following the true National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. They were forced to do so until Capital High School principal Clinton Giles relented following pressure from parents. One is left to wonder whether anyone ever challenged the rank separatism a different national anthem for black children represents.

Not likely. As with every assault on America’s prevailing culture, those who dare to object are routinely dismissed as bigots, racists, nativists, etc. by those who believe the only remaining cultural imperative is political correctness.

That political correctness has reached absurd levels in our nation’s schools. In 2013, Hunter Spanjer, a three-year-old deaf boy in Lincoln, Nebraska, was bullied by school officials to change his name, because the Sign Exact English (S.E.E.) for “Hunter” looks like a gun, violating the school’s zero-tolerance policy. Hunter was joined by seven-year-old Josh Welch, a Baltimore student suspended for chewing a Pop Tart into the shape of a pistol, representing yet another affront to the leftist doyens who have willingly joined the ranks of their fellow leftists, all of whom are determined to “transform the United States of America” into a socialist utopia.

It is a socialist utopia that requires dismantling our prevailing culture, brick by brick. One that increasingly characterizes the 80% of Americans who believe Judeo-Christian values constitute the foundations of American culture as out of touch at best, or at worst, as our illustrious president once put it, “bitter clingers” who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

“It is about equity,” said Montgomery County school board member Rebecca Smondrowski, who introduced the resolution to eliminate the holiday calendar references. “I made the motion because, if we are closing for operational reasons, then there should be no need to make reference to religion. That is the most equitable solution that I could see while recognizing that we need to be seriously addressing the criteria for how these things are decided in the future.”

Bet your life those criteria won’t include any deference for our prevailing Judeo-Christian culture. As far as the Left is concerned, such deference requires an offsetting accommodation – or an abject apology.