December 6, 2011 | Online

No "gay" for Christmas song

'Tis the season for stupid people ...

School officials at Cherry Knoll Elementary decided that their Christmas concert would be better if the word "gay" was stricken from a performance of "Deck the Halls."

It's a small school in Traverse County, Michigan, after all. No one would notice, they thought.

Well, someone got wind of the idea. A Facebook page was born. And the story went viral.

"Cherry Knoll Elementary School, of which I am an alumna, is removing the word 'gay' from Deck The Halls at the children's Christmas concert," said a source. "Please bring some attention to this issue! As far as I can find there has been no local press coverage, but you can see outrage from some community members at the school's Facebook page. Information to contact the school's administrators can be found here."

Seems people like their carols the traditional way, gay and all, thank you very much.

One Facebook comment summed it up best: "I for one support this decision, and additionally express my concern at other salacious lyrics involving homonyms the teacher may have overlooked. For instance, geeses 'laying,' Santa 'coming' and finding out who is 'naughty,' and of course any instance of the word 'do' or 'did.'"

"It's the frantic hand-wringing of homophobic teachers that are teaching these kids that perhaps there is something wrong with 'gay'," wrote another person. "Way to go. Way to twist the minds of the youth to 'your' skewed views on human rights."

The outrage made a difference. As of yesterday morning, the school announced "gay" would be sung at the concert.

Now if we could harness this same energy for marriage rights we'd be set!

School Removes "Gay" From "Deck the Halls"  [The Stranger]

Michigan School Removes the Word 'Gay' from 'Deck the Halls' ...  [Towleroad]