The last time Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) made a national splash was in early February, when the conservative congressman was making a strange case against vaccinating children from communicable diseases. “I know what morals and values are right for my children,” the Republican said, before saying some vaccinations “may not work” for his family’s “values.”
It probably wasn’t the Wisconsin Republican’s finest hour. Today, Duffy took his concern for family values in an equally odd direction.
[A Boston-area school district] had to extend its school year to June 29 because of how much snow the Boston area received this year. In preparation for next year, the district chose to get rid of two Jewish holidays and a Christian holiday so the school year wouldn’t have to be extended.Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), who appeared as the show’s “One Lucky Guy,” helped [Fox News host Andrea Tantaros] reach her conclusion by being the first to criticize liberals who, he said, were using the record snowfall to their advantage.
The Republican lawmaker told the Fox News panel, “Don’t let any good crisis go to waste, and if you want to take religion out of the public square, look at Boston, look at all the snow and say, ‘What a great reason. Now we can take these religious holidays out of our school system.’ It’s using the crisis to the liberal benefit.”
Apparently, in Duffy’s mind, part of the liberal agenda is scrapping religious holidays for children. Progressives in Massachusetts have been waiting for such an opportunity, the Wisconsin congressman apparently believes, and those rascals are now exploiting record snow fall to achieve their ends.
As a lifelong liberal, I didn’t realize that this was important to me, and I’m a little disappointed no one told me. Sean Duffy obviously has his finger on the pulse of the American left in ways I didn’t appreciate until now.
Fox hosts proceeded to tell viewers that school officials could have scrapped New Year’s Eve as an official holiday or possibly added Saturday school days, but they didn’t, the panelists argued, because officials “would rather take away the religious holidays.”
It’s evidently all part of the conspiracy first outlined by the three-term congressman from Wisconsin.
For context, it’s worth emphasizing that Boston snowfall has been downright ridiculous lately, with a record-high 64.8 inches in February and a record-high 107.6 inches for the winter season overall. School cancellations have been common and necessary, for reasons that have nothing to do with a liberal plot against religious holidays.
For that matter, whether or not schools are open for religious holidays has nothing to do with religion in “the public square.”
And finally, lately, when public schools have set aside days for religious holidays, conservatives are more likely to complain than applaud — which makes me wonder whether the right has fallen into the conspiracy.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."