Article seeks to distinguish the religious from the purely cultural aspects of the Christmas event celebratory in the non-sectarian and secular setting of the public schools.

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There should be no "War on Christmas" as some conservative pundits would describe the evolving de-emphasis on the religious character of the Xmas holiday. Rather we need religious and cultural "peace and good will" in our broad American diversity.

Is there a place for religion in publically funded institutions? Absolutely. There have long been public spaces for religious practice. Examples: the paid chaplains who pray and deliver brief homilies in the US House and Senate or in the 50 statehouses; or those who are careerists in the US military. I was a Protestant chaplain's office supervisor in a mock prisoner of war camp/detachment of the US Army Reserves at Fort Omaha, NE from 1976-1980; this after an 8 year US Air Force stint in the Strategic Air Command; headquarters Offutt Air Force Base, also near Omaha. Many of the reservists in our reserve police and prisoner of war detachments were then beginning to learn rudimentary Arabic because it was felt that we would probably be fighting and taking war prisoners in the Middle East in the near future.

That was way back before the Cold War was over and global communism, not global Islam, was the highlighted enemy.

Prayer or religious instruction by teachers or administrators in public schools is illegal, while public school children themselves, as individuals or in groups, are allowed religious privileges on school time and on school grounds. Can religious holidays may be part of the public school teaching curriculum?

The answer is very much a yes according the First Amendment Center section of TeachHub.com:

"Teachers must be alert to the distinction between teaching about religious holidays, which is permissible, and celebrating religious holidays, which is not. Recognition of and information about holidays may focus on how and when they are celebrated, their origins, histories and generally agreed-upon meanings. If the approach is objective and sensitive, neither promoting nor inhibiting religion, this study can foster understanding and mutual respect for differences in belief".

The First Amendment Center is also okay with the careful use of religious symbols in public schools:

"Provided they are used only as examples of cultural or religious heritage, religious symbols are permissible to use as teaching aids or resources. Religious symbols may be displayed only on a temporary basis as part of the academic program. Students may choose to create artwork with religious symbols, but teachers should not assign or suggest such creations".

In national attention grabbing news involving religion in the public schools, we now have the curious case of a Maryland school board that does not permit Muslims equal status or just parallel with Christians and Jews and has actually canceled the name of Christmas off its observed holiday list in act of rejecting Muslims petitions for fairness. National headlines announced that Montgomery County of Maryland Board of Education, the state's largest and very diverse district, with voted 7 to 1 to eliminate the names of Christian and Jewish holidays in their school system because they did not want to bow to Muslim American pressure "to give equal billing to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha", Washington Post, 11.11.2014.

The board struck Christmas, Easter, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah from holiday closing calendar but left the closed days those named events formerly represented so that now the kids get a winter and spring break. In actual practice nothing has changed except the names of the days.

Yet, all hell is breaking loose in conservative religious circles as attested to by many Internet and social media outlets that have mainly attacked Muslims for having the audacity to press the school system and demand equality with Christians as the Jews did earlier on the American scene. Several Muslim leaders suggest the board's decision was designed to deliberately "alienate other religion communities."

Arch-conservative ideologue Bill O'Reilly voiced his anger, calling the decision part of "the ongoing War on Christmas," and it's all the Muslims' fault" (11.13.2014, Salon.com.)

"In Montgomery County, Maryland, there'll be no mention of Christmas or any other religious holiday on the school calendars going forward," O'Reilly noted. "That's because a Muslim group did something."

On 11.14. 2014 CBS news captured some of the anger vented about the school board's decision; anger among Christian and Jewish parents, and anger of Muslims who only wanted their Eid al-Adha to be included; Muslims wanted equality but in no way wanted Christmas or the Jewish holidays to be cancelled. The decision has upset parents of all faiths.

Some of the comments CBS reported were:

"We did not ask for Christmas to be removed, we did not ask for the Jewish holidays to be removed from the calendar," one Montgomery County parent said.

"The reality is, we are still closed for Christmas,"

"We are still closed for Yom Kippur."

"It was like a punch in the face it came out of nowhere,"

"It was very insensitive to our Christian and Jewish neighbors ".

The school board president, in trying to defend the decision pointed to other major school districts that have similar holiday policies, told CBS news that:

"I think we touched a couple of third rails," Montgomery County school board president Phil Kauffman said. "That's really what many other school systems -- New York, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta -- it's really the norm."

The New Jersey State Board of Education has adopted a whole slew of religious holidays that public school kids may be absent from school to observe. New Jersey regulations on religious observation for students covers many religious sects, including Muslims, Hindu and Wiccans. In its recommendations on planning for holiday activities the NJ Dept. of Education also has a prescription for schools in those communities that have families that are opposed to holiday celebrations and/or activities for religious reasons. The Camden School Board or, now the powerless "advisory" only group, has the added policy "discretion of approving other religious holidays". However, the closing of the schools for two Muslim holidays remains an outstanding concern of some New Jersey Muslims as in the recent case of in Teaneck, NJ.

Montgomery County School President Phil Kaufmann's defensive argument may be the norm in some places but, given the uproar over the board's ruling, something else more sinister may be afoot as background to the school board's decision that seems to have "touched a third rail" in angering people of most religious faiths. Many issues are related to and run parallel with "War on Christmas" conservative ideology, including the dangerous anti-Muslim Islamophobia that has emerged again after being somewhat muted by the virulent racism spewed out on President Obama and the xenophobia expressed around Latino immigration issues in the past few years. The continued presence of US led forces in Afghanistan, Israel's on-going settler movement into more Palestinian territory and the latest reintroduction of US troops in Iraq (plus extension of US backed war fighting into Syria) to shore up Iraqi government soldiers in their push back against the ugly brutalities of ISIS and its announced threats against the US homeland may have had some background influenced on the anti-Muslim thinking of the Maryland school board's decision to not approved the Muslim request for equal religious treatment.

With the larger background concerns in mind, I want to focus on the religious and cultural question about the holy day/holiday of Christmas. I have left Easter and the Jewish school holidays for others to ponder.

Most assuredly, In a multi-religious and ethnically diverse society such as ours, with no one state sponsored and constitutionally approved religion, it is an injustice to have public schools celebrate (by closing) one particular religion's set holy day, re: officially observed holiday. It had been politically agreeable, as shown by the Maryland school board and many school districts across the country, to close the schools in observance of Christian and lately some Jewish holy days. Muslims and other less powerful religious groups are not normally allowed, unjustifiably, the privilege of public and federal/state backed observance of their holy days. In demonstrating its power to withhold justice to less powerful religious groups, the Maryland school agreed to take the religious names for the observances away while deceptively keeping the scheduled times for the observances intact.

On the other hand, if Christmas is a cultural holiday (backed by the federal and several state governments) that can somehow be increasingly detached from its post-Puritan (after the late 1600's) church roots in America --- remember the Puritans and Pilgrim founders of colonial New England for a numbers of years actually banned Christmas celebrations (1651-1689); they were initially opposed to Christmas celebrations, because of suspicion of its links to ancient pagan European and other regional festivals, its overly joyous tendency to distract from the seriousness of the Puritan quest for salvation based on observable, saint approved righteousness, and the lack of solid evidence for celebrating Christmas in the earliest expressions of Christianity --- then the religious aspects of the public holiday can be minimized while the strictly cultural dimensions can be enjoyed across sectarian lines..

The religious dimensions of Christmas should obviously be celebrated by Christians within religious circles and institutions, but not in public, tax paid for settings. To do so invites other religions to inquire as their rights to do likewise. One could imagine the social outcry and violent threats against minority religious believers if they were to grant the rights to do religious activities in public spaces that the majority of Christians say is their exclusive and inherent right to do in public settings. The whole issue of school prayer is not merely a theist v atheist debate. It's more an intra-theist debate that seeks answers to whose religious prayers are to be the standard for teaching in the public schools.

A goodly number of moderate to conservative Christian, Jews, Muslims and others would likely be among the first to want to bring back "prayer in the schools". Certainly they would want their own prayerful traditions to made part of a school curriculum. Just as certainly, also many sincere believers in all the faiths actually believe that their faiths, prayers, religious clerics and traditions are superior to others (who are lost souls with incorrect beliefs) and can never be seen or heard on an equal footing. This is the crux of the prayer in schools problem for theists. Whose sectarian prayer remains the main dilemma in a nation with a huge religiously oriented population?

Yet, the cultural presentation of Christmas for public consumption is kind of what has happened since the late 19th century commercialization of Christmas in the USA. Santa and Ms. Claus, the North Pole and elves, Rudolph and the four-legged crew, fir tree buying and preparation, mistletoe kissing, spiked egg nog drinking, gift wrapping, giving, travel to mom's house, children's toy makers, alcohol and spirit manufacturers, sports and entertainment producers, Uncle Sam's IRS tax and state collectors and the multiple other merchants who peddle Christmas wares, including the all the media promoters and movie hypes types --- have played significant roles in making cultural Christmas more like a holiday for all people, even those of other religious persuasions.

I know Muslims, Jews, traditional African and Native Americans religionists. Buddhists and Hindu people I have worked with who have no problem enjoying themselves, their families and friends and their time off from tedious work schedules during cultural Christmas. I was a high school history teacher for 25 years and have known teachers of many faith traditions all of whom were thrilled to enjoy their Christmas holiday breaks. I am also Muslim and I should also confess that earlier in life I was a budding young minister in the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian group that consciously foreswears the celebration of Christmas. Back in the mid-1950's my Witness parents arranged to buy and give me presents the on Christmas Eve the day before Christmas so when I visited my little non-Witness relatives, I would not feel slighted in anyway.

I also confess that I have in many ways celebrated cultural Christmas, with my many Christian family members and friends without a focus on the birth of the Prophet Jesus or Isa as we Muslims call the great religious personality who was supposedly, but for many religious historians was probably not, born on December 25th.

Some non-Christians even get caught up in the shopping for gifts thing and will even give their own children and Christian friends or relatives gifts and invite them over for dinner at Xmas time to watch a football game. Or they will go to their Christian friend's house or party to join a Christmas Eve festive. Even in the public schools and public charter schools Christmas as a cultural celebration detached from its strictly religious motifs should be included as an activity that is open to all regardless of religious ideology.

But even the centuries of accrued pagan aspects of the Christmas festive have a religious quality given their origins in ancient, pre-Christian European religious mythologies (not the ancient Palestinian, Semitic and/or Ebonite Christianity of the first century). A theist religious tradition piled on top of other different pagan religious, polytheist traditions. After centuries, much if not all becomes fuzzy, less clear and hard to figure out.

But sadly, I arrive at a conclusion having no real clue as to how to imaginatively deconstruct the cultural from the religious in the Christmas festive. The birth scene of Jesus, the Wise Magi, Eastern Star, farm animals and shepherds and may evoke both a mixed religious and cultural comment. Though even here constant commercialization of this pastoral, nativity scene has taken a secular turn in the eyes of nominal Christian believers and non-believers alike. Many of the ardent Christian faithful, like the colonial Puritans in Boston and Plymouth and the much later Jehovah's Witnesses of Brooklyn's Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, see that the somber seriousness of the religious idea of Christmas has been damaged over time by a purely irreligious "cultural" and commercial appropriation of Christmas. Or more orthodox Christian religious purists see that Christmas as a sacred holy day, when viewed, theologically or historically, does not merit the attention that many of their co-religionists may append to it.

What to do about that problem has not been clarified among the Christian majority themselves. There is a love for religion that's balanced by a love for culture; a culture based on irreligious values of materialism and engineered by capitalist economic methods that tend make commodities of all things, including sacred religious holy days. Until such confusion is cleared up, the Merry in the dandChristmas festive will remain most important for a religiously diverse American public. The religious dimension of the sacred Christmas holy day will hopefully re-enter pristine religious settings where all seriousness to the birth of Christ will be granted by observant Christian religious devotees. Muslim devotion to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha and Jewish devotion to their chosen holy days will also proceed within the borders of set devotional horizons and not in public spaces " unless, of course, the cultural aspects of those holy days can be constructed (by deconstructing the religious aspect) and presented as sanitized or secularized "Happy Holidays" that celebrate and wholeheartedly welcome diverse participation by all, but do no violence to other taxpaying people's religious beliefs.

Authors Bio:
Dr. Ibn-Ziyad has demonstrated an abiding concern for racial justice, humanitarian and environmental issues and has been active as a member or leader (1988-present) in the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (Washington, DC), the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the National Black Radical Congress (St. Louis and Philadelphia), the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, the Darfur Alert Coalition (Philadelphia), the South Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance.
Dr. Ibn-Ziyad has held teaching posts as an adjunct professor at Empire State College (New York City, 1987; sociology), the Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary (1998; Christian-Muslim Relations) and Rutgers University, Camden campus (2002 to present; philosophy, religion, criminal justice). Since 1988 he has served as a history and social studies teacher at Camden High School where he is also active in the Camden Educational Association's union activities. He is proud to have been chosen to serve for four years (1997-2001) on the New Jersey State Board of Education's social studies curriculum committee.
In 1994 Dr. Ibn-Ziyad was elected to the County Committee At-Large of the Democratic Party of the City of Camden. He is a former national chaplain of Vietnam Veterans Against War and past service officer of American Legion Post 473 in Camden.Most recently Ibn-Ziyad waged a campaign as a progressive Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives (1st District, NJ). Though ultimately unsuccessful in his June 3, 2008 primary loss, Ibn-Ziyad did gain 7% of the overall vote. In this first time, underfunded run he successfully garnered nearly 3,000 votes from those progressives and independents who opposed the monopoly and power of the regular Democratic Party and its handpicked nominee to replace 18 year incumbent Congressman Rob Andrews.