Two Rulings Expected on Public Displays of Nativity

[DemBones DemBones]

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=52234


10-December-2004 -- EWTNews Brief


MICHIGAN, USA, December 10 (CNA) - Two judges are expected to rule next week in separate cases on whether the Christian Nativity scene can be displayed in public.
The Thomas More Law Center filed the two cases, one in New York City and the other in Bay Harbor Islands, Fl., over policies that deny the public display of the Christian Nativity while permitting the display of symbols of other religions.

The center had filed a federal lawsuit, challenging a New York City policy that encourages and permits the display of the Jewish Menorah during Hanukkah and the Islamic star and crescent during Ramadan, but prohibits the display of the Christian Nativity during Christmas.

<snip>

(This last part is about Bay Island, Florida.)

The town had decorated the lampposts on its main street with Jewish Menorahs and stars of David and allowed a Jewish synagogue to display its Menorah at the town entrance. However, the town denied a Christian resident permission, for the second consecutive year, to display her Christian Nativity scenes.

Town attorneys defended their policy, saying the Menorah is a secular symbol and not a religious one like the Nativity.

***

How can the Jewish menorah and Islamic star and crecent be considered secular and acceptable, and a Christian Nativity scene banned? I certainly think of Judaism and the Maccabbees when I see a menorah and of Islam when I see the star and crescent symbol. What else could anyone think of?

I LIKE seeing symbols of other religions! I like knowing that we live in a pluralistic society, where people of different faiths can work and live together.

I'm distressed that Christians are prohibited from displaying Nativity scenes. Christmas trees, Santa Clauses, and the like are secular symbols of the Christmas season. Christmas has become a cultural holiday, with many secular symbols, making it a holiday anyone may enjoy and celebrate if they wish to. It can be thought of as a season of peace and that is no small thing. But a Christmas tree is not equal in meaning to a menorah or the star and crescent together. It is not a Christian symbol at all.

We Christians shouldn't be prohibited from displaying creches in public places at Christmas, when the creche is the quintessential symbol of the Christian meaning of Christmas. Even in schools, whatever happened to having displays of different cultures? All religions have cultural aspects that schools can discuss/ display examples of without advocating the religion itself. We used to learn Christmas customs of other countries, including singing Christmas carols in other languages. The only real problem I see is that there are no specifically atheistic symbols/customs but states could specify statewide (i.e., required) teaching objectives to foster understanding/respect for atheism and agnosticism as well as all religious faiths. Respect for, and understanding of, cultural differences has to be part of any curriculum.

[sandnsea]

1. Christmas customs, Christmas carols

You kind of answered your own question there, we learned about Christmas, not other religious traditions. Still, if they're going to allow the Menorah, seems to me the nativity has to be allowed too. The Star of David, that has become secular, but not the Menorah. On the other hand, this is why you keep religion out of government entities altogether. Let religion flourish in the home and church and private establishments. Bring the morals and values to government, they're more important than the symbols anyway.

[Princess Turandot]

2. Truthfully, at my age, I've learned about a variety of religious

traditions, not just the Catholic ones. I'd attended more than one Passover seder before I hit 30. At this point, I'd take the public celebration of a Hindu holiday over most others, since they often involve rather joyous meals, and damn good food.

I live in a development in NYC which is private property. They used to erect Christmas trees in a central area this time of year, with a Menorah for Hannukah and a creche for Christmas. The central area is quite large, and consists of trees/grass and a fountain. This year, they opted for an incredibly bizarre light display which includes blankets of lights wrapped around the trunks of trees, and odd ball electronic displays, including a mechanical figure who I think is lighting a lamp. They put up a tiny Menorah, and as far as I can tell, no creche. They have installed several unattractive 'birds of peace'. At night, the trees look like giant phallic symbols, since the lights illuminate the trunks up to a certain height, not the branches.

The vast majority of tenants in my complex are either Jewish or Catholic, with a sprinkling of Protestants & other faiths. I believe that Muslims usually don't have physical displays during their holidays, but if they did, it would not bother me if they put them up during Ramadan or for Eid. As far as I am concerned, these efforts to keep Christmas and Hannukah symbols out of December holiday displays, is just world-class kill-joy-ism. Christmas displays have been around for most of the 20th Century, and if they haven't established Christianity as a governmental national religion in violation of the First Amendment to date, I doubt they would do so now. I do not believe that they've changed the view of a single person regarding their own faith in a bad way. We've had far more moral governments than the current one, and public nativity displays at the same time.

There is a vast difference between nativity displays & the use of religion to define public policy, and people who choose to be pig-headed about the displays are providing avoidable ammunition to the factions which can actually influence public policy in a negative way.

[sandnsea]

3. "private property"

Have a blast! I love holiday displays of all kinds, on private property. I also like the birds of peace and lighting a lamp you describe. Fits in with the only way I'm able to celebrate at all this year, "light a candle rather than curse the darkness."

But when you haul it into schools and the government, you end up with squabbles. Which is exactly what is happening. Freedom of religion was meant to allow religion to flourish in society, and the resulting morals and values brought into government. We've got it all backwards. People are trying to bring the symbols and rituals of religion into government, because the morals and values have long since been left by the wayside. And that's not the fault of liberals, that's the fault of greedy capitalists.

[Princess Turandot]

4. I understood your original post where you made the same point..

I don't have any less respect for the Constitution
than you do. I just disagree with you that public nativity displays violate the First Amendment in any REAL way. They are not being 'hauled' into schools; Christmas displays have been around in schools and on public property for decades. The religious right had very little political influence 25 years ago, despite the presence of many a nativity display on public property. The current increase in protesting these displays as a proxy for protesting the current influence of the religious radical right on government is doing far more harm than good IMO.

[sandnsea]

5. The country has changed

It's not just Christian anymore. People standing up for their invidual rights granted in the Constitution is what caused people to speak about Christian only displays and prayers in schools and government. Every citizen has the right to feel that this is equally their country, regardless of their religion. Do you know who protested the prayer at the h.s. football game in New Mexico? Mormon and Catholic families. Catholics of all people should understand what happens when one religion is considered predominant. We've got a thread in here about being discriminated against. How do you suppose that happens?

How do you suppose it happened that the Bible was read in class 50 years ago, and what was a Catholic child supposed to do when that happened? How is it that Protestant prayers were said in public school? What would have happened if Catholic parents had insisted on the Hail Mary in southern public schools 50 years ago? I imagine Catholics just accepted it all because they were accustomed to being persecuted in this country, and sometimes the countries they had come from.

As far as the holidays, I think inclusiveness is the better way to go. Making sure all religions are represented, in full. Including Catholics. When did you ever see a celebration of a Catholic Saint in a public school; procession, altars, candles, icons? Oh yeah, we get accused of being idol worshippers when we do that.

I am glad we are changing the idea that the U.S. equals Protestantism. For the most part, religion never should have been brought into the classroom or the government. It was a mistake and needs correcting. But at the least, we either bring it ALL in, or we leave it all out.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. I say "Bring it all in; let kids learn about all religious traditions,

not just Christian." I did learn about religions other than Christianity in school, though I never went to school with any Muslims, and with very few Jews. When I lived in the Philippines, I had a Chinese friend whose mother was Buddhist, but that was about the extent of religious diversity in my childhood. That's coming from a military background, too, with military personnel coming from many ethnic backgrounds.

I don't think schools should teach the kids what to believe, but should teach what each major religion believes, about their holidays and other traditions. I very much want kids protected from religious pressure but at the same time I don't find it very realistic to think they can be, given that kids will pressure other kids. School prayer is kind of trendy now ("Meet me at the flagpole" and other voluntary prayer groups) and people resent not being able to have prayer at high school football games and graduations so it's kind of hip to be Christian.

Maybe it's hip to be Muslim, too, in schools where there are Muslims. When I was teaching, there weren't any Muslims in the schools where I taught.

[Princess Turandot]

7. Sorry..

I don't believe that putting up Nativity scenes or Menorahs during the December holidays is the equivalent of prayer in the public schools. I've never met a single person in my life who expressed annoyance over holiday displays, and I live in NYC, not in an insular hamlet in Illinois. Similarly, I've also never met a single person who seemed to have even thought about the presence of the word 'God' on the back of our currency or in the Pledge of Allegiance, much less felt threatened by it in any way, shape or form. (While I suspect that that is mostly because no one pays any attention to it, in my personal experience people of every faith use the word 'God' when speaking in English of whatever the deity is in their faith.)

Macy's & Bloomingdales here have apparently forbidden their employees to wish shoppers a 'Merry Christmas' this year. You are not going to convince me that the upswing in these 'bannings' is a great thing or will somehow prevent the loss of religious 'freedom'. And the worst result of all of this is that some people will start thinking that Fundamentalists have the right idea, when they think 'liberals' are attacking religion as opposed to political positions.

[sandnsea]

10. Indoctrination

It's funny, until "under God" was stuck in the Pledge and every school child said it every day, year after year after year; we didn't have this religious problem in this country. People didn't have the idea they could cross the lines of religion and politics. Before that, it was one nation, indivisible. Liberty and justice for ALL. No my god is better than your god nonsense. Indivisible, with religions flourishing OUTSIDE government, the way the country was designed.

[Princess Turandot]

14. Believe what you want..

but if you are referring to me as having been indoctrinated, consider that you know know very little about me, except that I'm not swayed by your views on this question. That could indicate that I'm brainwashed or that you are not making an argument well enough to change my mind, or something else altogether.

I also suspect that religious intolerance prior to the 1950's, when 'God' was added to the Pledge, was alive and well and much more common. After all, it was probably one of the main reasons that the US felt no moral need to rush to the aid of several million Jews who were being gassed in the 1940's. Religion & politics? Nah.

[sandnsea]

16. Not where I grew up

None of the neighbors were busy trying to save each other when I was growing up. People respected each other's religions and kept their own views to themselves.

But yes, Protestantism has been the presumed religion and people have been persecuted here. That's another reason I don't know why anybody would want to reopen that can of worms by putting religion back in the classroom and trying to put it in government as well.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. When I was in public school, we had Bible readings and prayers.

I was Protestant then but never heard the Catholic kids complain about it. Most Catholic kids back then went to Catholic school, anyway, at least in elementary school. Every school I went to, we always said the Lord's Prayer -- aka the Our Father, which is the universal Christian prayer. I'm sure most schools in the U.S., not just the South, would have faced problems if someone had tried to get them to have the kids pray the Hail Mary, because it's specifically Catholic rather than generic Christian.

I don't remember that anyone ever paid a great deal of attention to the morning prayer, pledge, and Bible reading, it was just automatic, like responding to roll call. Maybe it helped us some, though, who knows? For some reason, we didn't have the same problems in schools back then. Or in society as a whole. It's easy to see why people think it was a mistake to "take God out of the schools."

[sandnsea]

15. I never said a prayer in school

Somehow we managed to get along. My kids never said prayers in school, their schools never had any problems.

My dad and uncles on the other hand, half of them didn't graduate because they skipped school all the time. My cousin heard the story from her kids' teacher of the time her dad was locked in the coat closet by his brothers. Then there's the time a neighbor lady came to complain and my uncles dumped water on her from the upstairs window.

And no, none of them have ever even been arrested, never got divorced, never beat their wives, never had affairs, worked every day of their lives.

People just don't tell the truth about "back then", that's all.

[Beer Snob-50]

8. I have to say howeer

that this is really not a big problem! There are pockets around the country that ban this kind of stuff, but generally it is accepted and around. I live that great liberal bastion, Massachusetts and one of my sons came home and showed us how he learned to sign "Silent Night" in Music class! I see Nativity scenes in public places. I think this is just a propoganda tool by the RW to keep their base energized!

[sandnsea]

9. Here's why

This is just wrong. If you make the line clear, this wouldn't happen. I would much prefer to live in a country where all religious faiths co-exist peacefully and can all be reflected easily in the society. Unfortunately, people like this coach just don't respect freedom of choice. It's the zealots that cause these problems. The right has done a great job reframing religious freedom too, it's not an issue about somebody being "offended". It's about people like this coach.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheerleader21dec21.story

[DemBones DemBones]

12. WHy not tell us about the story so we don't have to

register at the LA times?

[sandnsea]

13. Simply

A coach forces students to attend Bible study at her home with her and her pastor husband. Here's another one, a teacher just can't stop talking about Jesus in his math class and got fired. I've got teachers like this in my own pubilc school, we ignore them but it doesn't make it right. Religion is a personal path of salvation, not a means of governing.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1640&u_sid=1291280

[TrogL]

17. I keep reading this as "public displays of nudity"

Yes, I've had too much to drink.

Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate this time of year.

[DemBones DemBones]

18. Merry Christmas to you, too, though it sounds as if you

already had one! :7