Say Hello to All Those Wayward Eyes

I have no idea when Easter is celebrated throughout the world. I know it has something to do with Spring and falls at different times each year. But I know that it must be Easter time.

A group of Arabs in Dearborn, Michigan are protesting a local Presbyterian church’s Easter egg hunt, dubbed an “eggstravaganza”.

I know how Arabs in the United States feel. More or less. I grew up in South Africa. Not exactly a bastion of Judaism. Most of the people around me were Christians. Mostly because I was not allowed to spend any serious amount of time with any black Africans and their less than Christian religions. Actually, I have no idea how Arabs in the United States feel. They can hang out with whomever they want.

I was surrounded by Christians through no fault of my own. People in the United States can surround themselves with pretty much anything.

I never understood the Easter egg concept. Rabbits laying coloured chicken eggs symbolise Jesus rising from the dead somehow. But I was never offended by Christians having an Easter egg hunt. The children seem to enjoy it and it hurts absolutely nobody. Unless you are vegan it should not be a problem.

The issue in this fabricated controversy is supposed to be that pamphlets for this egg hunt were handed out at a local school. The United States has a separation of church and state. Supposedly. That means that the state is not allowed to tell people how to worship. Supposedly.

I can get behind that. I do not want any government anywhere in the world telling me how to pray. Whether I voted for you or not it is absolutely none of your business. But in this instance no American government agency was handing out pamphlets or advertising this event. The local church did that and, this part might be important, the egg hunt was open to anybody and everybody, regardless of religious persuasion. Muslim children were just as welcome to dig around for chicken eggs as anybody else.

The school was not at all involved. As far as I know. Pamphlets were handed out at the school because this is a neighbourhood event for children. Schools are a good place to find flocks of children in their natural habitat. The school did not force anybody to worship anything in any way. It did not force anybody to attend the egg hunt. Blaming the school for this is like blaming the road when your car runs out of fuel. And once you take the school out of it there is no church and state issue.

Far more troubling than the Easter egg hunt is that many Christians eat ham for dinner on a day set aside to honour Jesus. Did Jesus eat pork? Even more disturbing is that this event was called an eggstravaganza. That alone deserves an honour killing.