Jesus Still Causing Controversy 2,000 Years On

The Inquirer’s Dan Hardy has so much more on the lawsuit over a student not being allowed to wear a Jesus costume at his school’s Halloween parade and party in Abington.

First, the background: E.D.T.’s parents are Christians who don’t agree with Halloween because of its pagan origins. (I hope they don’t put up a Christmas tree!) But they didn’t want their son to feel left out at school, so they wanted to dress him as Jesus for the school’s Halloween parade and party. The lawsuit says the school objected.

School districts have a right to ban students from wearing “offensive” costumes. I’m not sure how many people find Jesus’ message of tolerance and peace offensive, but I’d guess it’s pretty small group. And so, the lawsuit was filed, blah blah blah, et cetera.

The student, only identified as E.D.T., is in the photo at right. There’s really a lot to be said about this whole incident, too much to be contained in just one front page entry alone. So follow me after the jump to find out why Jesus has a pocket on his robe, what the school allegedly suggested the student be instead of Christ and just how hilarious the Inquirer comment section can be.

Okay, that’s all done and good. Let’s just move to my favorite line in the entire article:

Instead, the suit says, he was told that he could wear only his white robe, without the crown, and should say he was a Roman emperor.

“Okay, E.D.T., you can’t be your Lord and Savior, but you can be a the leader of the people who killed him. Is that okay?”

That’s just what the lawsuit says, though. The Abington School District says when Willow Hill Elementary School principal Patricia Whitmire raised concerns about the Jesus costume; the district also says the student and his mother agreed he wouldn’t wear the crown and would just present himself as someone from Jesus’ era. (What a boring costume.)

Matt Bowman, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund — the Christian legal group that filed the lawsuit — says nonetheless the school showed “hostility to Christianity… . There is no other reason to suggest that the child remove the crown except to say that Jesus is banned from our school.” Really, I can think of plenty reasons: It’s not such a good crown of thorns, it’s not brown enough, whatever. But lawyers love their hyperbole!

A lawyer at the First Amendment Center told the Inquirer that “[w]hen the school allows other expressions [like devils or goblins] that could be seen as religious, then they cannot disallow a Christian expression. That’s the most powerful argument here.” The students dressed as devils and witches, of course, were Satanists and Wiccans. (Goblins, of course, are the holiest of all religious symbols.)

If you think this story couldn’t get any stupider, than, well, you haven’t read the Inquirer’s comment pages. Among all the usual stupidities — random attacks on Christianity, random attacks on liberalism, random attacks on the ACLU, random attacks on other commenters — many people were upset at the costume because “Jesus was white.”

Why Jesus’ race would matter is beyond me, but, uh… Yes! Middle-eastern men like Jesus are typically known to be the palest of all white people. Or I guess the virgin birth makes him white because… because God is white? I don’t know what race God is, though, I better check with some commenters.

Mother sues Abington district over son’s Jesus costume [Inquirer]
Yesterday: His Holy Ghost Costume Was Also, Sadly, Rejected