California
After hearing from FFRF, the Ceres Unified School District had the Whitmore Charter School of Arts and Technology perform the secular play “Peter Pan Junior” rather than a play that promotes Christianity.
A district parent reported that their child’s drama class at the school would be performing “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” which promotes the Christian nativity story as literal fact. In the book version of the play, the narrator refers to Mary and Joseph as “the real holy family,” and says: “That was the whole point of Jesus — that he didn’t come down on a cloud like something out of ‘Amazing Comics,’ but that he was born and lived . . . a real person.”
“Public school curricula should not include performances that advance religious messages, including the suggestion that religious stories are historically true,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line wrote to the district.
The district reached out to Roman J. Muñoz, an attorney with the Lozano Smith law firm, who responded to FFRF’s letter. While Muñoz and the district disagreed with pieces of FFRF’s argument, they nonetheless complied, writing, “despite our disagreement with your depiction of ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,’ the Whitmore Charter School of Arts and Technology has decided to perform “Peter Pan Junior.”
