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Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Secondary Navigation Top Stories Full Coverage Most Popular Photos Search Search: US dress-up fest Halloween hit by political correctness AFP - Friday, October 31 WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Politics, as one might expect in an election year, has colored the popular US holiday of Halloween, when Americans don costumes and scarf down sweets collected while trick-or-treating. Masks of the presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, are selling like hotcakes, and Sarah Palin look-alikes wearing the Republican vice presidential nominee's signature red suit and black heels were ubiquitous at this week's Halloween race by drag queens in Washington. But there is another way in which politics is affecting the October 31 holiday, and it's far less tongue-in-cheek: political correctness. In schools around America, Halloween costume parades and other festivities have been banned, for a variety of "PC" reasons. In parts of Connecticut, there will be no costume parades because they "disrupt learning and waste limited instructional time," a superintendent of schools was quoted as saying in the Connecticut Post newspaper this week. School Halloween parties and parades were halted in 2004 in Puyallup, Washington because, education officials said, classroom time is limited and the festivities might offend followers of the pagan Wiccan religion -- witches, in other words. The ban remains in place, a spokeswoman for the school district said. Halloween has its roots in the pagan festival to mark the start of the Celtic new year and in Christianity's All Hallows Eve, which celebrates the dead -- hallowed saints and redeemed sinners -- the night before All Saints Day. "Conservative Christian parents are probably the most vocal about Halloween, and the concerns they have are that it is associated with demonic images, pagan images, which they find offensive and disturbing," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington. "They equate Halloween with a religious layer of meaning, which many other people don't see -- they see it just as a fun time for kids," he said. The holiday was first celebrated in the United States in 1921, and costumes were mass-marketed for the occasion beginning in the 1930s, according to the US Census Bureau. "Halloween is urban, capitalist and secular," said Douglas Gomery, a resident scholar at the University of Maryland's Library of American Broadcasting. "It began in cities, where you could walk from house to house in your neighborhood. You celebrate it in your neighborhood because the key to it is: where can a child go where you trust people and know they won't get mugged? "It has brought with it a huge economic burst, with sales of candy and costumes and decorations. Capitalists love it," he said. "But its religious significance is tiny. It's really a secular holiday." Sometimes, however, it's right to be PC about Halloween. A resident of West Hollywood in California was pressured by local officials to take down a figure of Palin, identifiable by her trademark red jacket, glasses, heels and wig, which he had hung by a noose outside his home. The Palin effigy sparked an uproar in the media and drew dozens of protesters to the neighborhood. And take, for instance, when someone suggested a suicide bomber costume to coolest-homemade-costumes.com, a family website run by Elad Shippony. A grainy photograph of the costume, which Shippony sent to AFP, shows a grown man wearing a turban, baggy trousers and white shirt with a black hard-plastic ice pack with wires protruding from it duct-taped around his middle. "Not only was I offended but other Middle Eastern people would be offended too," Shippony, who runs the website from Israel, told AFP. "In any case, suicide bombers never, ever look like this guy. It's a racist costume," said Shippony, who lived for many years in the United States, where his website has its largest following. But he posted the costume idea on the site nevertheless because, he said: "In America, you never really know -- especially at Halloween which is such a crazy holiday -- what the limits are." He was bombarded with messages expressing disgust at the costume. "The families who lost a husband, wife, mother, father, sister, brother, or child in the 9/11 attacks, I'm sorry, but I don't think they would be able to find anything humorous about suicide bombers, not even on Halloween," wrote Candy R. from Iowa. Shippony removed the costume from his website. Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Recommend this article Average (0 votes) Sign in to recommend this article » Most Recommended Stories » Most Popular – Top Stories Viewed When men see red, they see hot: study Asian stocks soar on US Fed rate cut McCain in defiance as Obama boosted by economic data World's fattest man weds friend's widow Desperate pleas end in despair as starlet's nephew found dead View Complete List » Search: Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology

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