PARAMUS, N.J. (CBS) ― A Paramus middle school student was sent home Friday after he came to school dressed up as Jesus for Halloween. For a few hours, Alex Woinski was the messiah of West Brook Middle School, but like the real Jesus, Woinski was condemned, so to speak.
“Sort of like a new remake of what supposedly happened,” Woinski told CBS 2.
Decked out in sandals, a robe, fake beard and thorns, the 13-year-old joined 500 other students at his school’s Halloween celebration, and on this day, he was the chosen one – to go home. “It was offensive to some students,” Woinski said, when asked what school officials told him the reason for being sent home was. Woinski says he wore the costume because friends say his long hair makes him a Jesus lookalike, and were not offended by his costume. The school says his costume was a disruption and denies its religious nature had anything to do with it. “I don’t think I overreacted,” Principal Joan Broe told CBS 2. Broe said too many students were drawn to the costume, and that was reason enough.
“Children were [asking], where is the boy whose Jesus Christ?” she said. “It was disrupting the education process.” Woinski’s parents agree it was political correctness gone amok. “I think the whole freedom of speech and expression has definitely had a damper put on it, and this is proof of that,” says Kim Woinski, Alex’s mother. But it won’t put a damper on Woinski’s trick or treating. This Jesus has been resurrected for Friday night.
Woinski has developed an interest in religion. His mother is Catholic and his father is Jewish. He recently celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and his also studying Bible scripture. His school says this was the first time anyone had ever dressed up like Jesus. They say other students were ordered to alter their costumes because they were deemed inappropriate.
It seems this wasn’t done maliciously, or was it? I wonder if we will see a repeat of this at Christmas, when dressing up as Jesus for school plays and nativity scenes is acceptable? Christians sure can be finicky at times.
Cheeses Christ, that is really petty.
Who the hell knows what Jesus looked like anyway?
Ah…the subtly of political correctness.
# 3 hhopper said “Who the hell knows what Jesus looked like anyway?”
He was blond haired, blue eyed, and exactly six feet tall.
Thanks, I never knew.
I wonder if they sent home anyone dressed as the devil or had on devil horns.
#3 – Hop,
Wasn’t Jesus your basic long-haired liberal commie pinko hippie freak?
Or, am I thinking of Horus. I always get them confused. It’s probably just because neither ever existed.
“It was disrupting the education process.”
Yea–so what was the entire halloween costume day?
Seems to me the teachers missed an educational moment in responding with EDUCATION to whatever the kerfuffle was.
Futher, without something specific the other way, looks to me like the only upset or concerned people here were the School Administration, maybe the teachers, and maybe 3-4-5 undiagnosed holy rollers that had their noses out of joint.
Still, regardless of how you dress it up, school is not a location for free speech but rather totalitarian indoctrination.
#8 – Mis. Scott – Very interesting video.
What is the school, Talaban/Christian high.
I didn’t over react. Ya right !
Is it just me or it’s ironic that a Jewish kid is playing as Jesus?
#8 – Scottie
>>The reason is quite simply that I find it
>>amusing that a couple of billion people
>>believe this crap.
Ah, Scottie. Amazing how just about everybody in the world can be wrong, and you can be right, isn’t it?
And, aside from your unsubstantiated statements on misanthropicscott dot wordpress dot com, and the YouTube video from “richpartners” I see no evidence to support the idea that Horus was the “Lamb of God”, was crucified, baptized at 30, etc.
And even if he was, bfd. Are you such a literalist that can’t accept that there’s a common truth in what just about all of humanity believes?
Tsk tsk. Why don’t you just allow the billions of us who do believe to live our lives?
Take on the abortion-doctor killers, the meth-and-man-ass hypocrites, the anti-same-sex-marriage flakes all you like. Hey, I’ll be a co-litigant with you and the ACLU on a lawsuit.
It mystifies my why you and your fellow believers (or believers in non-belief, if it makes you feel better, but a belief nonetheless) continue to persecute those of us who choose to have our spiritual beliefs in the privacy of our own homes and places of worship.
Let me see if I understand this, the school allows the celebration of Halloween which is a pagan ritual but the sight of someone dressed as Jesus freaks out the teachers and principal. Morons.
“Christians sure can be finicky at times.”
Actually I took it as being anti-religion. Separation of state and church. Political Correctness with zero tolerance. If one shows up dressed like Jesus they will all start dressing like religious figures.
Jesus wore a t-shirt?
Fox newz report
get ready for more of this made up BS
What would little kid do? Suffer the Jesus to become unto me.
#14–Angel==its so obvious that I’m responding just to find out what trap you have set: Jesus was a jew. How is a jew playing a jew ironic? The christian religion took a few hundred years to develop after their figurehead died for our sins.
#15–Mustard==what do you mean “unsubstantiated statements” while you quote from the substantiation. Golly, when it comes to your religion you don’t make any sense at all. Maybe you could “see” substantiation if you opened your eyes==or is it your mind that needs a crowbar?
I thought anyone as educated as yourself would know of the slow evolution of the diety thru cultural institutions.
Persecution? hah, hah. Good one.
#21 – BooBoo
>>==what do you mean “unsubstantiated
>>statements” while you quote from the
>>substantiation.
==I wasn’t == “quoting from the substantiation” =//bobster//=, I was quoting from Scottie’s web site. What he himself wrote. =-_()
What I wonder is //how// you can \\tolerate\\ the hubris it ==must take== to assume that virtually ^^all^^ of humanity is wrong, and you are right.
Gosh. \\Are you an archbishop (**or maybe** PoPe) at your ChUrCh of \\DisBe=lief\\??
# 18 John C Dvorak said, “Jesus wore a t-shirt?”
Of course. Lions vs. Christians, Live at the Roman Coliseum®
Lots of those shirts around back then.
Here’s a better shot of the t-shirt.
#20 – ZZZZzzz…
Mustard–by virtually all you mean what exactly–10% on the high side? How many christians have gone to war with one another over some small point of catechism? Same God but Muslims will kill a Catholic? Etc.
Yea, just one big single belief.
Yuk, Yuk.
but to your direct question. Yes==whoever thinks, however many think, because of a religious interpretation, that the earth, or any other “fact”, is only 6000 years old is wrong. My basis is not hubris, but science. Science–keeps beating Religion in every matchup.
JJ – That was one of the funniest characters I’ve ever seen in a movie.
#26 – Bobo
>>whoever thinks, however many think, because
>>of a religious interpretation, that the
>>earth, or any other “fact”, is only 6000
>>years old is wrong.
Christ, you’re a windbag.
And are you sure your name is BoBo and not DoDo? How come you’re not extinct, like the dinosaurs that Jesus rode around on like Fred and Barney???
Except for laughable kooks, NOBODY thinks the earth is 6000 years old. Sure, you can find the fringe wingnuts with their “Creationism Museum”, or whatever it’s called, but come on.
The vast majority of us believe, not only in a higher power, but that science (including evolution) are keys to understanding the unknown.
You cousistently lump the billions of us in with the tiny fraction fo whackos.
Tsk tsk.
For a soi-disant lover of science and logic, you sure are nutty.
#5
She is not!!!
# 18 John C Dvorak said, “Jesus wore a t-shirt?”
“I died to save you and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”
That just seems too easy…
What’s funny, is I look like Jesus almost everyday, what with the beard and long hair.
From #21
> I thought anyone as educated
> as yourself …
You are being sarcastic right? From #28 we have:
> And are you sure your name is
> BoBo and not DoDo?
Perhaps one reaches a point in their education where playground name calling comes back into vogue?
Regardless, farce, parody, and criticism is fine as long as it is directed at other religions. If it is directed at their own religion, it is blasphemy.
That said, clearly this kid was doing this to draw attention to himself and to tweak the teachers. While I agree that it was a missed opportunity to teach, I can see how it would be a disruption.