A Maryland school district removed religion from its calendar after taking requests to include Islam’s Eid al-Adha. Many disapproved, including Chuck Norris.
Recently, Maryland’s largest school district decided to remove references to religious holidays from its calendars after being petitioned by the Muslim community to designate Eid al-Adha as an official school holiday, like Christmas and Yom Kippur. The district’s 2015-2016 calendar now has no mention of religious holidays, similar to nearly every large school district in the US. While the school will still be closed on those days, the religious holidays will no longer be listed on the calendar, which is a very different outcome than the families requesting inclusion of a Muslim holy day were expecting. A lot of concerned citizens have voiced their disagreement with this action, most notably, actor Chuck Norris.
Critics have called the move disrespectful and insensitive to Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims. For Chuck Norris, the move represents “a slippery slope” the US is sliding down, a slide that needs to be stopped “before it’s too late.” He believes that such a move has nothing to do with education, but is simply turning the school into “another indoctrination camp,” calling it “pipeline progressivism.”
Chuck Norris’ concern centers on whether “religious neutering to accommodate diversity” is leading to a new religion of political correctness in America. He cites the Bill of Rights as being created to protect freedom of choice and shows concern over that choice being used to move the nation in a more secular direction. Chuck Norris believes such a move as that made by the school district does not reflect the America the Founding Fathers envisioned. He shows concern over President Obama’s silence on the subject; insisting that he should be protecting religious liberty and the First Amendment by speaking out against the action taken by the school district. He mentions growing animosity toward religion in America as part of the reason for the President’s silence and the school district’s decision.