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<i> Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation's press</i>

From our What Price Metaphor file: Lansing, Mich., school officials have banned a non-biblical play metaphorically based on the birth of Jesus. Several weeks ago, a fifth-grade class selected a play called “No Room at the Inn” for performance; the play tells the story of a coldhearted innkeeper who refuses a room to a pregnant woman, but he changes his mind after the baby is born. Superintendent John Reynolds of the Waverly School District said the play “could be viewed as promotion of Christianity,” but parents are saying the ban violates the children’s constitutional right to free speech and another First Amendment clause that prevents the state from inhibiting the free exercise of religion. A special Lansing Board of Education meeting today will decide the matter.

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