"He got friendly, holdin' my hand.""She got friendly, down in the sand."

Mo. Drama Teacher Resigns in Play Flap

COLUMBIA, Mo. - A central Missouri high school drama teacher whose spring play was canceled after complaints about tawdry content in one of her previous productions will resign rather than face a possible firing.

"It became too much to not be able to speak my mind or defend my students without fear or retribution," said Fulton High School teacher Wendy DeVore.

Ooohhh...tawdry content! One immediately salivates, expecting a late Tennessee Williams or a raunchy David Mamet. Whatever did this depraved pedagogue foist on our innocent American youth?

DeVore's students were to perform Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," a drama set during the 17th Century Salem witch trials.

But after a handful of Callaway Christian Church members complained about scenes in the fall musical "Grease" that showed teens smoking, drinking and kissing, Superintendent Mark Enderle told DeVore to find a more family-friendly substitute.

Let's review that one. DeVore's current production involving one of America's least sexy immigrant communities in the throes of a religion-fueled hysteria of intolerence and bloodshed is yanked because of a previous production of a musical so universally popular that wedding dee-jays around the world keep the "Grease megamix" in their satchel of party-enliving tricks.

I think my high-school took us to see the Olivia Newton John/John Travolta release in the theatres as a field trip.

Not to be overlooked is that this thing came about after "a handful of Callaway Christian Church members" complained. Deputy Governor Danforth himself would be proud:

This is a sharp time, now, a precise time-we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God's grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it.

Or as Marge Simpson pointed out (and was apparently not talking about the current administration):

Let's come to our senses, everyone! This witch hunt is turning into a circus!"