Christian nutters steal kids Halloween fun

The bloody Jesus Brigade complain and whine that they can’t use public funds to promote a Christian view of the world. They whine and cry that Christmas, an old non Christian holiday, can’t be celebrated with Christian symbols on state funded property or with prayers in government controlled schools. Now the best solution is to privatize the schools and the property but until that happens they don’t have the right to tax subsidies to push religion.

Now these same whingers are tackling a purely secular holiday: Halloween. It’s an excuse to dress up in costumes and go Trick or Treating. It is not associated to most with religion of any kind. No prayers to any deity are offered up. No religious views are expressed. It’s about as religious as Labour Day.

But the Underwood School in Newton, Massachusetts has banned any Halloween celebration in the school because Born Again nut cases pant hysterically that Halloween is “devil worship”.

If there is any myth these lunatics fall for more than the silly Jesus story it would be the Satan story. Satan is a Christian concept which is why the few Satanists that do exist are really nothing more than Christian heretics.



The purpose for stealing this fun from kids is that fundamentalist kooks are offended. Good grief! These people turn being offended into an art form. They are perpetually offended. Placating these people is like banning the Star of David to satisfy Nazis. It’s only the beginning. They are intolerant, ignorant authoritarians who demand the right to ban everything not in keeping with their stilted, fundamentalistic view of the world.

The schools in Puyallup, Washington have also banned Halloween. Kids will not be allowed to hand out candy or wear costumes. One school official, Tony Apostle (I’m not making up the name) said that the ban is due to religious sensitivity. His excuse was that Halloween is supposedly a Wiccan holiday and that Halloween images are offensive to Wiccans—all six of them.

But the only Wiccan church in the area disputes that and said this is a thinly veiled excuse to banish a holiday that offends fundamentalist Christians. Pete Davis of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church said: “The religious right has for years been trying to put an end to any Halloween celebrations.”

The brain dead Robert Knight of the Family Research Council has said that Halloween “represents the full expression of an occultic viewpoint.” He also made it clear that one motivation for this anti-fun view of the Christian Right is to get even for them not being able to use state funding to push their viewpoint. “[I]f they’re going to be even-handed in not establishing religion in the schools, they’re probably going to have to do away with Halloween.”

In the thriving metropolis of Kingsport, Tennessee, a nut case from the New Harvest Ministries’ Preaching Christ Church (the dumber the church the longer the name) is leading a campaign to ban Halloween. The evangelist Mike Poff ha also made it clear that it is revenge for losing a tax subsidy that drives their campaign to steal Halloween from children. “From a Christian standpoint in the school systems, we’ve had prayer taken away, the Ten Commandments and things of that nature... since we have infringed on atheists’ rights. Next year we are going to have 3 million signatures that say if any sign of Halloween is plastered in the school rooms, in the halls, than they are infringing on our rights.” I doubt he’ll get his 3 million signatures. It won’t be easy finding that many fundamentalists who know how to write!

Poff was not happy that local newspapers carried letters from outraged citizens calling him an extremist. He responded. “What we are attacking is a very evil day known as Halloween, the one day of the year set aside for Satan. ....I’m an extremist for Christ... It’s time the body of Christ put their walk behind their talk and take a stand and say they no longer want their children exposed to witches, ghosts, goblins and Harry Potter or any thing else dealing with Halloween. It’s time we Christians made some noise of our own.”

Of course Poff is as ignorant of the facts as most born againers. Even if Halloween were being celebrated as a “Wiccan” holiday there is no connection to the mythological Christian entity called Satan or the Devil. Second, Harry Potter has nothing to do with Halloween as evidenced by the fact that Halloween was celebrated in the United States for decades prior to a British writer inventing the character.

Hammond, Indiana is home of the First Baptist Church cult of the decease Jack Hyles. At it’s height the cult attracted tens of thousands of church goers every Sunday. The Hammond school district has banned Halloween costumes. They cited two reasons. One is the real reason and the other is the excuse used to justify their decision. The excuse is that they did it for safety reasons. In the unlikely case of a fire in the school they said they were worried about trying to evacuate students wearing costumes. And they said they were worried about students in costumers walking home. Right! Of course the real reason was that they received three complaints about the celebration.

Hyles, by the way, died a few years ago but not before it was revealed that for years he was carrying on an affair with his secretary. His son, and heir apparent, was thrown out as a minister of a church when it was revealed he was bedding several women from his congregation. David Hyles left his wife and married a woman who advertised (with him) in a swinger’s publication. The biggest scandal regarding Hyles came with the death of his step son. Police said they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute but believed that the child was killed by Hyles. A second child was later killed as well after it supposedly fell out of the car driven by the new Mrs. Hyles. The “accident” took place in the driveway and the child allegedly fell out of the back seat and then rolled under the car which then ran over the infant.

In Los Altos, California the school board backed away from banning Halloween in 1995. At that time some fundamentalist Christians again tried to impose their stilted view of the world on everyone else. They again wrongly argued that Halloween was a Satanic holiday. Over 600 people packed out the school board chambers to complain about the ban along with a small number of religious fanatics who argued that even after-school parties should be banned.

Meanwhile while region after region is facing a campaign to ban Halloween the same Religious Right kooks are complaining that Christmas is being banned. One of the more popular “Christmas” books for the lunatic Right is “The War on Christmas”