Raleigh, USA - Schools across United States are facing rising objections about Halloween from religious parents who say the holiday has pagan or satanic overtones.
On the other side, those who support church-state separation object to Halloween's religious roots, reports the Christian Science Monitor.
Bowing to these concerns, some elementary schools are canceling costume parades and Halloween celebrations, replacing them with "Fall-o-ween," which takes note of harvest and seasonal change but eliminate all things spooky or controversial, says the report.
"There's been a steady growth of the number of people and the kinds of perspectives objecting to Halloween, and it's become a real issue for schools," says Charles Haynes at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va. "There's a lot of strangeness around this issue."
The challenge to Halloween in schools "really gets to the heart of minority rights and minority feelings in a pluralistic culture," says Jo Paoletti, an American studies professor at the University of Maryland in College Park.