She views it as a pagan holiday, an opinion shared by most scholars who agree that long before it was appropriated by Christians, it was celebrated in Britain and Ireland centuries ago as the Celtic festival of Sambain. Certain aspects of the celebration, most notably stories about the appearance of ghosts and goblins and such, became an unsanctioned part of the Christian observance of All Hallows' Eve. Over time, the holiday lost much of its religious significance and became primarily a secular occasion. Ms. Whitsel's complaint with today's Halloween is that it is, in effect, a religious holiday, but not a Christian one. Satanism is a religion.
Witchcraft is a religion.
Ms. Whitsel then asks why it is OK to have Halloween carnivals at school when Christmas programs are banned. You don't have to agree with Ms. Whitsel's conclusion that Halloween is a Satanic religious holiday to concede that in the narrowest interpretation of the definition, Halloween is a holiday with religious origins, either Celtic or Christian or both. Most of us would agree that analogy would be something of a stretch. Christmas is indisputably one of the two major Christian holidays, while it is more difficult to make the case for Halloween as a Satanic religious holiday. Florida law and federal court rulings allow school systems to use the Bible in teaching history and literature courses as long as the curriculum is secular and doesn't attempt to proselytize to students.