Ban the Bun

Are hot cross buns politically correct? According to a school in England, no, no they aren't:

A SCHOOL has banned hot cross buns in case they offend pupils from religious minorities.
Head teacher Tina Jackson asked for the crosses to be removed from all buns supplied by caterers.

She is worried that the religious imagery might upset some of her pupils who are Jehovah's Witnesses. Last night parents accused her of political correctness gone mad. But Miss Jackson, of The Oaks primary school in Ipswich, Suffolk, said: For our students who are Jehovah's Witnesses, hot cross buns are not part of their beliefs.

I was over at Ianism yesterday, and Ian just happened to have a post regarding words and imagery. His post seems to fit this article perfectly:

It is irrational to suggest that a word or image has power. The only power that exists from an image or a word is in the mind.

A word is nothing more than a pattern. It's a pattern that a communicator used to attempt to communicate their own ideas and notions. The ideas and notions may be false. Responding to false ideas and notions emotionally is insanity.

The school decided to ban the crosses on buns not because of an actual complaint by Jehovah's Witnesses, but because they thought the image of a cross *might* offend the Jehovah's sensibilities.

Do the crosses on hot cross buns offend Jehovah's Witnesses? Nope, no rational thinking person could even perceive a slight from something as innocuous as this, that's just silly.

Could it be that the school has overstepped it's bounds, and are making decisions based on their own paranoia? I'd say that's closer to the truth.

Another case of political correctness gone wild.

Keep your bun in the oven