BAD SANTA? I see the ACLU has griped because a minister dressed as Santa Claus was allowed to address a Baldwin City, KS classroom about the meaning of Christmas.

The Topeka Capital-Journal dispatch doesn't give much detail on the talk, though the Lawrence (KS) Journal-World reports that the ACLU has "urged the school district to investigate elementary schools allowing a Christian minister dressed as Santa Claus to discuss the meaning of Christmas, referral of students who appear to need guidance to Christian resources and granting Christian 'missionaries' access to students in after-school programs"

Well, that's the ACLU's job, I guess. And I wouldn't presume to pronounce on this case without more evidence. Maybe the Rev was counselling persecution of homosexuals, say, while under cover of Kringle.

But more and more I figure this is the sort of case where the ACLU ought to just let go of the rope. It's a bitter thing to say, but most cowtown kids have no strong motivation to think and act freely anyway, and trying to protect them from the depradations of organized religion is probably going to work about as well as trying to protect them from Wal-Mart and reality TV shows. Meanwhile complaints like this give wingers and Jesus freaks another chance to bitch about how liberals spoiled their Christmas.

I think the ACLU should take its contingency fund for events of this sort and invest it in copies of The Origin of Species, Babbitt, A People's History of the United States et alia, and send copies to safe houses throughout the Bible and Ethanol Belts, where young people who wish to escape the stifling stupidity of their parents and warders may take refuge. The cultivation of a few free minds might do more for our freedoms in the long run than blanket deChristianization of the public square.