The director of a high school choir in Wausau has suspended rehearsals for upcoming holiday concerts because the school district wants to limit the number of religious songs performed by students.
The district wants to avoid violating the constitutional separation of church and state.
Some members of the school board and many parents and students in the community aren't happy about the district's decision to place restrictions on the traditional holiday concerts. But some, like Rabbi Dan Danson of the Mount Sinai congregation in Wausau, support a policy of limiting the amount of Christian music.
“It's very hard on our students when the music is exclusively Christian or very heavily Christian in the program,” says Danson. “We certainly like the idea that there would be a balance in every program that's done.”
One member of the high school master chorale singers says it's the inherent beauty of the music and its history – not its religious origin – that the school district should consider when deciding to limit what the students sing. Seventeen-year-old Kevin Ruhl says composers like Bach and Handel wrote music for the church because they had no other choice.
“It was written for the church because the church controlled everything,” says Ruhl. “Taking that a way would be a devastating blow. It would be like taking Shakespeare away from an English classroom.”
The school board plans to meet next week to consider whether to review the new policy of requiring a balance of religious and secular songs in holiday concerts.
Updated: The rabbi at Wausau's Mt. Sinai Congregation's name is, in fact, "Dan." We regret the error.
