Apparently Jack Waldvogel, treasurer of the Petoskey, Michigan, school board, was being “tongue-in-cheek” when he demanded in an e-mail sent to district staff and board members that the wording of the school calendar be changed from “Winter holiday break” to “Christmas break.” Yes, I suppose I can see the irony in the following passages:

We are, in spite of what the Obamessiah proclaims, STILL a Christian nation, founded on Judeo Christian principles.

Two choices here for our school district…either agree to change the “December vacation” back to “Christmas Break,” in ALL future publications (including the school calendar) voluntarily, or I will make such a stink, and bring out every redneck Christian Conservative north of Clare, to compel the District to do so. The press will love this one…

Our children need to know that we are a Christian nation and taking all reference to a higher being out of our educational vocabulary is wrong. Let the Ramadamians and the Kwanzanians bring their celebrations to school too…to share with our Christian children, but don’t cut God out of the school completely.

And possibly also when he wrote, “Don’t assume this is a joke…I’m being as serious as I possibly can here.” Only, I don’t think his irony was intentional–particularly because what’s ironic about all this is that his ranting e-mail proves why it’s important to keep  church and state separate: so the Waldvogels of the world can’t impose their radical religious (and historically inaccurate) ideas onto others.

Waldvogel refers to Muslims as “Ramadamians” and seems to have absolutely no understanding of or care about the Establishment Cllause. To borrow from the inimitable Barney Frank, trying to have a conversation with this guy would be like trying to argue with a dining room table (except that the dining room table would probably be far more stable). And I have no interest in doing it.