In 2003, Walnut Creek renamed it’s Easter Bunny and citywide Easter Egg Hunt. They replaced “Easter” with “Spring” and life went on without complaint. Until this year when one angry resident wrote a letter to the editor of Contra Costa Times. The letter is as follows:
The Easter Bunny isn’t welcome in Walnut Creek. Neither is the traditional Easter egg hunt.
The oh-so-politically-correct have run the Easter Bunny out of town, replacing him and all things Easter with the generic spring bunny (who probably wears the Easter Bunny’s costume) and spring egg hunt.
Those banning the Easter Bunny will claim they’re trying to be inclusive and avoiding any religious overtones. But an Easter egg hunt is about as religious as drinking beer on St. Patrick’s day or giving roses on St. Valentine’s Day. Also, if the spring bunny events have nothing to do with Easter, then why schedule them on the day before Easter? Why not move them up a couple of weeks to coincide with the first day of spring?
But that wouldn’t make sense, would it? And neither does the unholier-than-thou effort to undo a long-standing tradition for the sake of modern expediency.
Those who want to participate in a tradition should take their Easter baskets and hunt for Easter eggs in cities that know when to leave well enough alone. And on your way out of town, thank Walnut Creek for keeping the parks and children safe from the Easter Bunny.
Michael Runzler
Walnut Creek
Since I can’t possibly say anything about this without finding myself ranting about the true origins of “Easter” bunnies and “Easter” eggs and how very little they have to do with Jesus, which will invariably lead to a rant about Santa Claus, I’ll quote the theology professor from the first news story I linked who sums it up nicely:
“It’s really not a big deal,” said Lawrence Cunningham, University of Notre Dame theology professor. “I don’t see any intrinsic value to the rabbit to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“The bunny is a fertility symbol with no religious connection to Easter,” added Cunningham who was the Christianity editor for the in the HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion. “The egg, which was popularized in Greece, Russia and Eastern Europe in connection with Easter, does not have a religious connection to Easter. By taking away the term ‘Easter,’ these symbols to some extent return to their pre-Christian roots as symbols of spring fertility.”
Can I have an Amen? Yes, it’s true, the Easter Bunny has a good deal more to do with f*cking like bunnies than it does walking out of tombs, unless I missed the bits about bunnies and eggs in the Bible all those many times I have read it. :rolleyes:
This is the first time I heard that Walnut Creek had renamed it’s Easter Bunny! I live in the neighboring city of Martinez. What is Walnut Creek trying to prove? Is this their way to prove they’re politically correct? Now I hear they also renamed their Christmas tree to holiday tree. Good Lord (oops, I mean Good Grief)! I happen to know the City of Walnut Creek is allocating funding for this big, new library buildling, spending millions and millions on it. If they truely want to be politically correct, they better throw out all the library books that make ANY reference to Chistmas tree or Easter bunny. I’m a traditionalist, and I am sick and tired of people throwing out any and all symbols or references to Christ or Jesus! What people are doing is destroying all my childhood memories by changing names of everything.