Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 31, 1993 TAG: 9301290018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
BEWARE CONSEQUENCES OF HOLIDAY BATTLE
The battle over religious holidays in the Montgomery County schools has given both sides the chance to vent their spleens in righteous moral fervor.One side blasts the other as non-believing secular humanists with a master plan to destroy Christianity.
The other sees intolerant fundamentalists trampling their constitutional rights.
Both sides feel garbed in moral right.
On both sides are good people - people who have lived together peacefully as neighbors, as nodding acquaintances in Kroger, as fellow faculty members for years.
A darker side has surfaced, too. This controversy has brought out latent prejudice and anti-Semitism that is both surprising and saddening to find here. You hear it where you'd least expect it. One retired professor called to suggest " they go back where they came from."
I thought they probably came from Europe - the same place as his ancestors and mine.
I'm not even sure what it is we are fighting about. The school holiday names had been changed years ago. The change had absolutely no effect on what children are taught or what they do in the schools.
Perhaps this eruption was caused by years of frustration at what some saw as a gradual erosion of Christian influence in the schools and in society around them.
I don't think, though, that even in the Ozzie and Harriet era, when Bible classes and the Lord's Prayer and religious assemblies were part of the school day in Montgomery County, that the schools were ever the place where children learned the important lessons about religious faith.
From my 12 years in the Blacksburg schools, I have two memories of Bible classes:
One was trying to color a stained-glass window in an exercise book before Easter. I was never much good at coloring.
The second was Paul Kelly sliding his desk out into the hall each week because, of course, the classes were Protestant Bible classes.
At the time, I never thought twice about it. Blacksburg was a much smaller, more homogeneous community than now and there was little diversity in our school classmates.
I never stopped to think how it might have felt sitting out in the hall - a spot normally reserved for those who misbehaved in class. But now, I have to wonder at how Paul was made an outsider in his own school system because, even though he was Christian, he was not Protestant Christian - the actual, if unofficial, religion in our schools.
This is not to make light of the part religion played in my life as a child and teen-ager.
But the lessons I learned came from my parents and from the church we attended. I credit both with nurturing in me an underlying faith and an optimistic outlook that has accompanied me through life.
This righteous indignation on both sides - and in the media - in this most recent controversy may do wonders for venting our pent-up frustrations and anger . . . but it also poses the risk of creating a permanent and destructive wedge in our community.
Virginia Tech President James McComas talked recently to a leadership seminar about the need to bring the community back together, about the need to unite us rather than to exacerbate the differences among us, if this valley is to grow and progress.
The controversy has hurt already - creating animosity and distrust among neighbors. It also has presented a less than flattering picture of the community in the regional and national press.
Montgomery County Superintendent Harold Dodge spoke of receiving a phone call from a national education group in Washington, asking him to serve on a committee dealing with religious issues. The group called after reading about the county's controversy over religious holiday names in the national media.
Dodge talked to a local civic group about his concern that this community was being perceived nationwide as insensitive. "The community has taken one huge step backward. . . . Everyone in the country knows what this community is facing."
That sort of publicity could hurt our valley's efforts to grow, to attract young professionals or older retirees, to bring in new industry. But the greatest risk may be the threat it poses to our own ability to work together to solve our local problems.
I've listened as community leaders huddled at gatherings to speculate whether the community is beginning to divide into factions.
Could a drive for an elected school board be the first step in an effort to elect a conservative Christian majority to the board?
Would such a board and its agenda for the schools prompt Blacksburg residents to start talk of city status again to gain control of their own schools?
Such divisiveness would be costly at a time when the community as a whole is experiencing tighter budgets and tougher decisions in trying to sustain an excellent school system in Montgomery - and other counties in the New River Valley.
From my peaceful vantage here, I've looked askance at the Balkans and shaken my head at how different cultures and religions can cause longtime neighbors to turn on each other in hatred, shattering their community and ignoring the common bonds that have linked their lives for years.
Our own religious and cultural controversy seems tepid in comparison, but the troubling images are there of a community that is becoming more divided and less tolerant.
The deeply personal nature of religion makes it an issue that is both volatile and difficult to discuss without emotional overreaction. But we must discuss it and find common ground to respect each other if we are to function as a community.
One teen-ager at Christiansburg High School spelled out the alternative: They're her best friends, she said of several students who disagree with her on the question of religious names for holidays. "Now, we can't even talk."