{"id":236,"date":"2009-10-21T15:48:40","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T15:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/10\/halloween-religion-and-the-pub.html"},"modified":"2009-10-21T15:48:40","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T15:48:40","slug":"halloween-religion-and-the-pub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/10\/halloween-religion-and-the-pub.html","title":{"rendered":"Halloween, Religion and the Public Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every year about this time Americans United starts getting calls about celebrations of Halloween in public schools. <\/p>\n<p>They come from two kinds of people.&nbsp; First, we get calls from Christians wondering why Pagans are able to get decorations and parties at schools around one of their holidays, but Christians can barely get a tree in the schoolhouse door in December, much less have a Christmas party.&nbsp; Second, we get calls from Pagans and Wiccans wondering why their local schools are insulting their religious traditions by putting up ugly pictures of &#8220;witches&#8221; and acting like Halloween is just about loading your mouth with chocolate bars and gumdrops.<\/p>\n<p>Do you get these calls, too?&nbsp; Do both sides have a point?&nbsp; Would you, Jay, suggest schools put up&#8211;oh, maybe&#8211; maps and math puzzles from October to January and leave black cats and pine trees out of the decor?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every year about this time Americans United starts getting calls about celebrations of Halloween in public schools. They come from two kinds of people.&nbsp; First, we get calls from Christians wondering why Pagans are able to get decorations and parties at schools around one of their holidays, but Christians can barely get a tree in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[274,271,51,272,67,275,273],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-schools","tag-christians","tag-halloween","tag-news","tag-pagans","tag-politics","tag-religion-in-public-schools","tag-wiccans"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Halloween, Religion and the Public Schools - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/10\/halloween-religion-and-the-pub.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Halloween, Religion and the Public Schools - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every year about this time Americans United starts getting calls about celebrations of Halloween in public schools. They come from two kinds of people.&nbsp; First, we get calls from Christians wondering why Pagans are able to get decorations and parties at schools around one of their holidays, but Christians can barely get a tree in&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/10\/halloween-religion-and-the-pub.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-21T15:48:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rev. Barry W. Lynn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Halloween, Religion and the Public Schools - Lynn v. Sekulow","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/10\/halloween-religion-and-the-pub.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Halloween, Religion and the Public Schools - Lynn v. Sekulow","og_description":"Every year about this time Americans United starts getting calls about celebrations of Halloween in public schools. They come from two kinds of people.&nbsp; First, we get calls from Christians wondering why Pagans are able to get decorations and parties at schools around one of their holidays, but Christians can barely get a tree in&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/10\/halloween-religion-and-the-pub.html","og_site_name":"Lynn v. Sekulow","article_published_time":"2009-10-21T15:48:40+00:00","author":"Rev. Barry W. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}