In the midst of economic decline and a looming pension crisis, the City of Cranston has announced a ban on ‘father-daughter” and “mother-son” activities in its school system including the traditional father-daughter dance.
Caving into another round of legal threats by radical the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Cranston Schools Superintendent Judith A. Lundsten, issued the ban in a letter to the Parent Teacher Organization.
The ACLU threats were issued on behalf of a single mother whose daughter wasn’t able to attend her school’s father-daughter dance.
The ACLU is once again leading the charge in the relentless quest to redefine marriage in the State of Rhode Island and as they did in the removal of an innocuous prayer banner from the Cranston West High School Auditorium.
This time the group has set its sights on the very fabric of our culture- parenthood. In an age when marriage between a man and a woman is considered irregular and even the mere mention of a higher being is viewed as offensive, it is not surprising that the venerable tradition of having sons and daughters attend a school dance with their fathers, mothers or chosen guests is now subject to controversy.
The ACLU and other radical secularists who often aided and abetted by the media and Hollywood elites who consistently promote images of marriage and family life that profane and banalize these sacred institutions are now waging war on fatherhood and motherhood. It is part of their radical campaign to undermine and eventually eliminate traditional family life as the core and foundation of our culture and civilization. Pope Benedict XVI alluded to this threat last June in an address before the 7th World Meeting of Families suggesting: “Indeed, the utilitarian mentality tends to take its toll on personal and family relationships, reducing them to a fragile convergence of individual interests and undermining the solidity of the social fabric.”
In recent years the Ocean State has witnessed the elimination of the Easter Bunny in Tiverton Public Schools, the advent of the Holiday Tree in the Statehouse and the ongoing attempt to redefine marriage. The radical secular crusade to marginalize faith and God from the public square now includes a campaign to remove fatherhood and motherhood from the sight of our children in public schools. Common sense and traditional values, long the victims of the ACLU’s anti-faith agenda, are now sadly to be joined by fatherhood and motherhood as the latest victims of the culture war waged by radical secularists in the Ocean State.
Enough is enough. We commend Mayor Alan Fung for expressing his disappointment with Cranston school officials for discontinuing the longstanding tradition of father-daughter dances and mother-son ball games. We also call upon the citizens of Cranston to rise up to oppose this attempt by a few radicals and secularists to not only undermine but to actually eliminate family life from their school system. If this foolish decision by the City of Cranston School Department is allowed to stand, it will be another stake in the heart of the fabric and foundation of our culture and civilization.
