Seems to me that the students, parents and administrators out at Erwin Middle School have forgotten why they're in Western North Carolina and the United States in the first place: religious freedom.
The Puritans couldn't get any in Britain, so they left for America, where we even wrote an Amendment to protect their religious freedom - and everyone else's. Fast forward 200-plus years, and this seems to be forgotten among those who heckled Shana McNelly in her chorus class after she complained about the predominance of religious hymns on the school's spring concert.
The overriding sentiment among those in the majority seems to be this: "We're all for tolerance, as long as you believe the same things we do." Shana, 13, rightly complained that six of nine songs were Christian and was subsequently run out of class on one occasion by jeering students. After the concert, the good Christian folk harassed Shana and her mother with loud Christian music and told them how they were going to hell.
Maybe what these folks need is a little taste of Bizarro World, where everything is turned upside-down. In this fictional world, Christians are 5 percent of the population rather than 99.5 percent. Here's how I think this fictional news story would unfold: An Erwin Middle School parent says students continue to harass her 13-year- old daughter because of the girl's Christian beliefs, and she maintains that school officials condoned the harassment. "I just can't understand why these pagans keep forcing their beliefs on my child," said a still-irate Nellie Godfearer, mother of Allie, 13. "All she wants to do is go to school, sing in the chorus and mind her own business, but they're constantly hollering pagan slogans at her, or telling her that the Great Mother is going to smite her."
The harassment turned particularly ugly last week after the choral concert, which out of nine songs featured four pagan tunes, including "We All Come From the Goddess" and "Earth, Air, Fire and Water Return." Students in the majority, who openly mocked Allie's belief in her "savior" Jesus Christ, say consistently they see nothing wrong with the religious songs in a school setting or the morning prayers to the Lord of the Greenwood. "If she can't get with the program and stop believing that junk, well then that's just tough," said Billy Darknight, a pagan and one of the students who drove Allie from school in tears.
Principal Seymour Blindlee said he did all he could to make the students stop, including asking them in a firm tone to "knock it off.'' "Religion is always a sensitive issue, especially when you have students who believe in this wacko stuff like Christianity," he said.
John Boyle's column appears on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Contact him at 232-5847 or JBoyle@CITIZEN-TIMES.com