Main Street K-3 School (Shelbyville, Ill.) has removed two Christian spirituals from its holiday concert after receiving a letter of complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
A concerned parent contacted FFRF after her child’s holiday concert included the songs “Mary Had a Baby” and “Go, Tell it on the Mountain.”
In a Dec. 17, 2012 letter to Superintendent Denise Bence, FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor told the school that it was “wholly inappropriate for public schools to perform songs of Christian worship in a public school setting.” Gaylor continued, “Teaching these very young and impressionable students pervasively Christian music in a public school violates the First Amendment.”
Bence responded on Dec. 21, 2012, informing FFRF that the songs would be taken out of the holiday concert and replaced with secular holiday music.