Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

To the editor:

Please don’t stop censoring wrong rainbows by simply painting over rocks. Since any alternative non-Biblical rainbows might damage young folks, here’s a partial list of related materials ripe for censorship.

All scientific descriptions of rainbows as optical illusions created when light bends through bows of suspended water particles after storms, producing multitudes of rich colors. Since the National Weather Service (which accepts the forbidden reality of climate change) avoids referencing Genesis in its definition, farewell weather forecasts.

All dictionaries that do not reference Genesis in defining the term “rainbow” and/or use such phrases as “of, relating to, or being people of different races or cultural backgrounds” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

All non-Biblical stories about rainbows. For example, ancient Greeks and Romans, who practiced polytheism (should be a forbidden word) and religious toleration (should be a forbidden practice), poetically personified the rainbow as Iris, the female messenger of the gods. Likewise, rainbows appear in stories of the Navajo, Mesopotamians, Buddhists, Hindus, Norse, Australian Aboriginals, Irish (don’t let kids become Leprechauns), and many other cultures. All wrong. Actually, it’s best to ban all studies of comparative religions, whether they reference rainbows or not.

All non-Biblical rainbow-themed items including candies, cakes, cookies, ice cream, drinks, decorations, greeting cards, banners, bags, backpacks, coolers, mugs, bottles, sunglasses, bracelets, shirts, dresses, footwear, hats, scarfs, towels, flags, and trout. And all hopes that pets upon death pass over The Rainbow Bridge to await their masters’ ascents to heaven.

All recordings of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” (“Somewhere over the rainbow way up high there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby”) and any version of “The Wizard of Oz”, which parodies a would-be dictator who deceives his followers with smoke, illusions, noise, and grand, empty promises that he knows that he cannot fulfill.

And all recordings of Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection” (“Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me”) and all things related to The Muppets, who celebrate diversity and inclusion as good.

After all, why should young folks learn to respect others who live, believe, and love differently?

Charles McAllister

Mocksville