The title was to be sung by students but the management chose to cancel it because of its message of inclusion, in particular of LGBTQ + people, which “could be perceived as controversial”.
Officials at the US Elementary School in Heyer, Wisconsin stopped a first grade class from singing the title Rainbowland of Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton during a show, according to the agency Associated Press.
Based on an idea from their teacher, Melissa Tempel, these 24 students aged 6 to 7 were to perform this piece at a concert planned for the spring with the theme “unity and peace in the world”.
But when the class had been in rehearsal for several weeks, school officials decided to remove the song from the program, judging that its message “could be perceived as controversial”.
Released in 2017 on the album Younger Now de Miley Cyrus, Rainbowland advocates, in its text, the inclusion of the difference of origins, gender or religion and the love of the other and supports the LGBTQ+ community.
“It would be nice to live in heaven, where we’re free to be exactly who we are. To live in a rainbow land, where you and I walk hand in hand. Oh, I’d be lying if I said that everything Is fine, with all the wounds and the hatred that there is here”, sing Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton on this title.
“My students were upset”
If Melissa Tempel rightly chose this track for its universal and caring message, school officials said in a press release that the words of Rainbowland on LGBTQ+ people were not “appropriate to the age and level of maturity of the students”. The CP class will therefore have to interpret another title, Rainbow Connection you Muppet Show.
“My students were overwhelmed. They really liked that song and we had already started working on it,” Melissa Tempel told The Associated Press.
According to the professor, the parents of students were shocked by the withdrawal of the song. For her part, Melissa Tempel is especially concerned about the bad image that this ban decided by the management gives to the students regarding the school’s support for the LGBTQ + community.
“This confusing message ultimately creates a fairly hostile atmosphere towards people from the LGBTQ + community,” said the teacher.
As the US agency reports, school principal James Sebert had in the past already banned the display of rainbows and LGBTQ+ flags in school classrooms and suspended the work of the equity and diversity teaching team in 2021.
Besides this song, the pupils of Heyer Primary School also had to sing other songs such as Here Comes the Sun of the Beatles and What a Wonderful World de Louis Armstrong.
