Political correctness, British-style:

Teachers at nursery schools in Oxfordshire, England, have asked children to change the words of “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” to “Baa, Baa, Rainbow Sheep” to avoid the possibility of offending anyone.

Wait a minute, if using the word “black” to describe sheep in this children’s song is supposedly offensive to black humans, then wouldn’t changing it to “rainbow” just end up offending everybody?

This isn’t the first time nursery rhymes have fallen victim to the British PC campaign. In 2003, the Mothercare store chain in England began selling cassette tapes and CDs featuring a new version of Humpty Dumpty in which there was a happy ending. The new version said that “Humpty Dumpty opened his eyes, falling down was such a surprise, Humpty Dumpty counted to 10, then Humpty Dumpty got up again.”

[...]

Most have argued that “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” has nothing to do with race. The nursery rhyme dates back to the mid-1700s and is related to a tax imposed on wool by the king [...]. Black wool was apparently taxed at a lower rate than white wool.

Sounds like the white sheep should find a lawyer. They’ve got a discrimination case on their hands.

Stuart Chamberlain, manager of the Family Center in Abingdon, England, and the nearby Sure Start Center in Sutton Courtenay, told the Oxford Star weekly newspaper that the nursery schools had changed the words of “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” to follow stringent equal-opportunity rules.

“No one should feel pointed out because of their race, their gender, or anything else,” he said.

Not even sheep.

Update: The veracity of this story is being disputed by Parents and Children Together, a charity that runs some of the nurseries cited in the article linked above. However, it appears that no such denials have been issued by the Family Center or the Sure Start Center.