Education December 13, 2016 10:38 AM

Wake County school choirs barred from performing at nativity event

By T. Keung Hui
khui@newsobserver.com

T. Keung Hui: 919-829-4534, @nckhui

APEX — The Wake County school system barred several school choirs from performing at this year’s Apex Christmas Nativity Celebration following a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The Wisconsin-based foundation argued that it was unconstitutional for the school choirs to perform at the annual nativity celebration sponsored by the Church of Latter-day Saints in Apex. Wake school officials said they acted after the foundation forwarded a YouTube video in which a church official makes statements such as how the event “represents a wonderful opportunity for you to bear testimony of Christ to your friends.”

“The advice of Tharrington Smith (the district’s attorney) is that it put the district in the position of potentially endorsing a religious viewpoint,” Tim Simmons, a Wake schools spokesman, said in an interview Tuesday.