Acts for have consequences'

To the editor: I was deeply saddened to read about the PTA’s decision to change the Sanfordville Elementary School’s annual “Breakfast with Santa” event to a Winter Wonderland Breakfast. The thought that religious bigotry would ever raise its ugly head in the Warwick community never crossed my mind. But it did, when the husband of a school parent read a letter at a PTA meeting that his wife sent to Dr. Frank Greenhall, superintendent of Warwick schools, demanding that religious inference be eliminated from the event. In an interview with The Warwick Advertiser, the parent, who declined to have her name disclosed, defended her action by stating: “This is a matter of following the law of our country. It is sad that no one ever questioned this event before.” Never mind that millions of New Yorkers are forced to pay, under color of law, for educational policies and initiatives that are in conflict with their deeply held beliefs and destructive of freedoms guaranteed to them by the law. As is often the case, acts do have consequences; so it should come as no surprise that if come next May, people of faith view the elimination of the reason for the season (Christ’s birthday) from the event scheduled for Dec. 9 as a suppression of their religious expression and vote “no” on the next school year budget. Edward P. Scharfenberger Warwick