For over sixty years, private groups have put up 14 Nativity scenes in Palisades Park in Santa Monica, California. For the first 45 years, there was little controversy, but 14 years ago, atheist groups began demanding equal time. Because of their insistence, the city decided to institute a lottery system and divvy up spaces at random. This meant that Christmas displays were set up side by side posters declaring all religions nothing but ugly myths. This all came to a boiling point last year when atheists flooded the lottery and got most of the available spaces, prompting church groups to sue and leading a frustrated city council to ban all private displays.
Much of this supposed controversy is nothing more than ignorance of the Constitution, and a lack of the regard for people with differing traditions and beliefs. . First, even though Puritans 400 years ago banned Christmas celebrations as too secular, and the majority of Christmas revelers today pay little attention to its religious beginnings, for the sake of argument, let’s assume many think of Christmas as a purely religious celebration. As such, is it a violation of the Constitution to display religious symbols on public property? The short answer is “no.” Contrary to common belief, nowhere in the Constitution does it state there should be a separation of church and state. What the Bill of Rights does say, is that Congress cannot either establish a religion, or prevent people from exercising the right to worship the way they choose. Clearly, private groups displaying their personal beliefs in no way establishes a religion, but preventing them from putting up Nativity scenes could very well violate the second part of the amendment.
The city council of Santa Monica caved into pressure from atheist groups, and by so doing, punished everyone for the actions of a few. Allowing groups to display their traditions and beliefs in public is, or should be acceptable. What should not be allowed is for people to ruin someone’s long-standing tradition just because they don’t wish to play a part. It was wrong of the council to ban everything. What they ought to do is to allow Christmas displays at Christmas time, just as one might allow Pumpkin displays during Halloween, even though clearly not everyone celebrates Halloween, and some are even offended by it. If atheist groups wish to have their say, let them have space where other holidays are not being celebrated. August comes to mind as having very few holidays. Hatred and vindictiveness should not be considered valid points to establishing displays and ruining the Christmas spirit for the 97% of Americans who celebrate it.
original watercolor by Mikyong Rodgers
