School Fires Teacher After Saying Merry Christmas To Atheist Student

[crjmurray]

"37-year-old Paul Horner, who had been a teacher at Westview Elementary School for 15 years and had no prior disciplinary infractions, was fired by school officials after saying ‘Merry Christmas’ to one of his 3rd grade students. That student, who is anAtheist, found Horner’s well-wishing to be offensive and inappropriate; that is when the student contacted his parents and the principal."

"I say ‘Merry Christmas’ to everyone, I don’t mean any harm by it,” Horner said. “I made a mistake and forgot that Westview enforces a strict ‘Christmas-free zone’. I apologized to the boy, his family and my colleagues for my actions, but they still let me go. That job is all I had in life. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

http://foxnews.com.hk/school-fires-teacher-after-saying-merry-christmas/

 

[My Shalom]

Sounds like a lawsuit in the making.
Isn't it amazing what America is becoming.

 

[bhsmte]

"37-year-old Paul Horner, who had been a teacher at Westview Elementary School for 15 years and had no prior disciplinary infractions, was fired by school officials after saying ‘Merry Christmas’ to one of his 3rd grade students. That student, who is anAtheist, found Horner’s well-wishing to be offensive and inappropriate; that is when the student contacted his parents and the principal."

"I say ‘Merry Christmas’ to everyone, I don’t mean any harm by it,” Horner said. “I made a mistake and forgot that Westview enforces a strict ‘Christmas-free zone’. I apologized to the boy, his family and my colleagues for my actions, but they still let me go. That job is all I had in life. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

http://foxnews.com.hk/school-fires-teacher-after-saying-merry-christmas/

To get canned for this, tells me this school has a "zero tolerance" policy on this issue. IMO, this is a silly issue, to have zero tolerance on and if the teacher had no track record of ignoring policies, canning him over this appears over the top.

Not sure if teachers in his area are part of unions or not, but if they are, they will likely go to bat for him on this.

 

[Hetta]

It's more likely that the third graders parents were offended by it. Not many third graders care very much about such things.

Ugh. Then I read the link. "The war on Christmas continues ..." Shut up Fox News.

And then, is this some kind of Onion story masquerading as news, because I find this part hard to believe: "We here at Westview Elementary School sincerely apologize for Mr. Horner’s uncaring and heartless behavior."

 

[Hetta]

OP you got played. The "hk" on the end of the "foxnews.com" means it is yet another hoax. Do you people never even check these things out?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/suspended.asp

The 'war on Christmas' continues as a simple well-wishing of 'Merry Christmas' has led to big trouble for one fourth-grade San Francisco boy this week.

Timothy Dawson, a 9-year-old student at Anon Elementary School in San Francisco, CA., was in the school cafeteria Monday eating with friends when he was taken to the principal's office and given a week-long suspension. His punishment was consequence for saying 'Merry Christmas' to his homeroom teacher earlier that morning.

Dawson's teacher, 35-year-old Paul Horner who is an outspoken Atheist, was offended at the students display of Christmas spirit and had staff suspend the young boy for the rest of the week.

Maybe that's how Fox News always reports (histrionically) but there were way way too many red flags in that report.

 

[Hetta]

Isn't this at least the third time you've made threads on these hoaxes? Are you not even looking at the IP address? Are you just googling for "war on Christmas" stories?

 

[bhsmte]

Isn't this at least the third time you've made threads on these hoaxes? Are you not even looking at the IP address? Are you just googling for "war on Christmas" stories?

Just noticed that, you are correct.

 

[Nithavela]

Waiting for more Infos on this, most likely, there are other factors in play conveniently ignored in the story.

Edit: Annd I was right.

 

[My Shalom]

OP you got played. The "hk" on the end of the "foxnews.com" means it is yet another hoax. Do you people never even check these things out?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/suspended.asp



Maybe that's how Fox News always reports (histrionically) but there were way way too many red flags in that report.

So the OP got played but you replied in post #4 when the hk you're talking about was clear in the link the OP posted. And then think to prove the OP got played by linking a Snopes article that isn't at all related to the OP article but concerns a 9 year old child's suspension.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

"37-year-old Paul Horner, who had been a teacher at Westview Elementary School for 15 years and had no prior disciplinary infractions, was fired by school officials after saying ‘Merry Christmas’ to one of his 3rd grade students. That student, who is anAtheist, found Horner’s well-wishing to be offensive and inappropriate; that is when the student contacted his parents and the principal."

"I say ‘Merry Christmas’ to everyone, I don’t mean any harm by it,” Horner said. “I made a mistake and forgot that Westview enforces a strict ‘Christmas-free zone’. I apologized to the boy, his family and my colleagues for my actions, but they still let me go. That job is all I had in life. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

http://foxnews.com.hk/school-fires-teacher-after-saying-merry-christmas/

That sucks but it seems like it's something that has already been mentioned to staff and he admitted he forgot. I think the school went a bit overboard in firing him, though. Did they put no consideration towards how long he taught there without incident?

I also have my doubts as to the alleged "atheism" of this third grader. Most kids that age are not exposed to enough religious opinion to have formed their own and be a self-proclaimed atheist. Parents on the other hand....

This is the statement the school put on their website regarding the incident:

During the holiday season it can be easy to forget important things like the separation of church and state. As a progressive school, Westview Elementary School is a proud “Christmas Free Zone”.

Not sure why they would need to specify "Christmas free" when they should actually apply that to any specific holiday. It's not just about keeping Christmas out. In a sense that is doing the same thing and only focusing on Christmas being the holiday of this season. I'd say they shot themselves in the foot with that statement.

​

As some of you may or may not know, we recently had to terminate employment of our third grade teacher Mr. Paul Horner for saying the words “Merry Christmas” to one of our fine Atheist students.

Which sounds ridiculous if you ask me, an atheist. Atheist shouldn't even be capitalized. It's not a proper noun.

What Mr. Horner said to this child was offensive to all religions and belief systems.

No it was not and nobody can make a statement like that for all religions and belief systems. No one has the authority to determine what is or is not offensive to another group. Personally I find it offensive that they would make such a sweeping statement.

We here at Westview Elementary School sincerely apologize for Mr. Horner’s uncaring and heartless behavior.

You should apologize for your own uncaring and heartless behavior of firing a teacher for wishing a holiday greeting.

To the kid if he really is an atheist, grow some thicker skin. You live in the most religious secular country on earth and you will be surrounded by Christians wishing you a merry Christmas for the rest of your life. So get used to it.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Well that was a waste of my time....

 

[Hetta]

So the OP got played but you replied in post #4 when the hk you're talking about was clear in the link the OP posted. And then think to prove the OP got played by linking a Snopes article that isn't at all related to the OP article but concerns a 9 year old child's suspension.

The article is linked to the OP in that the story in the Snopes article has quite obviously been adapted to feed the current obsession of the "merry Christmas" crowd. If you can't see that the story has been switched around, with the same name being used for the teacher, I don't know what to tell ya.

 

[Hetta]

Well that was a waste of my time....

From here on out, I will just look at the URL in the OP, and if it is bogus, just disregard.

 

[My Shalom]

Yes, just disregard. Don't reply first believing the story real and then go to oodles of trouble to flame the OP author about posting fake articles while claiming the way to tell the article is a hoax is the 'hk' in the URL.(It's not an IP, which stands for Internet Protocol).

 

[Nithavela]

But the OP IS a fake story.

 

[Hetta]

Yes, just disregard. Don't reply first believing the story real and then go to oodles of trouble to flame the OP author about posting fake articles while claiming the way to tell the article is a hoax is the 'hk' in the URL.(It's not an IP, which stands for Internet Protocol).

If he thinks I'm flaming, he can report me. Otherwise ...

 

[Hetta]

But the OP IS a fake story.

But it's bad to say so.

 

[Nithavela]

Hey look, it's the story about the dolphin mascot on that page.

 

[Nithavela]

Yes, just disregard. Don't reply first believing the story real and then go to oodles of trouble to flame the OP author about posting fake articles while claiming the way to tell the article is a hoax is the 'hk' in the URL.(It's not an IP, which stands for Internet Protocol).

Foxnews.com.hk is a fake news satire site, if you haven't noticed. Just read their news stories. The fact that they have no stories before November 9 and only 8 news stories total, with no news about anything actually real or important (or both), might tip you off.

 

[ViaCrucis]

OP you got played.

Don't confuse the puppet master with the puppet.

-CryptoLutheran