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America is once again beginning to publically affirm Christmas. This is the CitizenLink Report.
Hi, I'm Stuart Shepard along with Bruce Hausknecht who follows the courts for Focus on the Family.
Hi, Bruce.
Hi, Stuart and Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you. Every year about this time we hear the stories. Legal groups challenging
any Christmas display on public property. Any Christmas carol included in a school program.
Any invitation to a church Christmas event. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no; we can't have that
so the letters go out and the court challenges begin. But we may not be hearing enough about
the victories that are happening when it comes to this fight over Christmas every year and
today I want to talk about winning. Let's talk about some of the successes.
Well that's good. We started it off earlier this year back in March where a federal appellate court
in the Third Circuit in Pennsylvania said look, to a school district, you cannot prohibit
a child from distributing flyers inviting other children in the class to a church event
at Christmastime if the school also allows flyers to go home on other subjects.
It's kind of the level playing field approach to it. That was a plus for Christmas. We've had
schools in -- already this year approaching Christmas in Wisconsin, in South Carolina,
and in New Jersey at first prohibit Christmas carols in their winter choir programs or whatever.
Winter Holiday program.
Winter Holiday programs. And then reverse course after they heard either from the parents
of the school children or from affiliates like the Alliance Defending Freedom who are
quite good at sending letters educating these school districts on what really are the rights
of children in schools at Christmastime. So that's been a notable victory. We even had
the Governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, suddenly reverse course of several years practice
in his state of calling the State Christmas tree a Holiday Tree. This year once again
it is now a Christmas tree.
Now he didn't apparently like doing that but he did it anyway.
Well yeah it was one of those things like well that's what the predecessors had done
so I'm going to do it the same way without every actually considering the merits of what
the tree ought to be named. And finally we're seeing nativity scenes go up around the country
in various cities of State Capitols and we're very glad to see that and hopefully those
will not be challenged in court because they have been done correctly.
And that includes Springfield, Illinois; Tallahassee, Florida?
And Daily Plaza in Chicago, and elsewhere.
And those are each one perhaps people would hear them and say well, that doesn't seem
like a big deal individually but you start stacking them up and you start seeing that
these are successes for our religious freedom and also our right to free speech under the Constitution.
You know I think we're seeing finally some pushback over years and years of battling
these things every Christmas. I think what it's taken is a little education and groups
like ADF who are willing to do the battles in court if necessary. I think between the
parents and the legal groups out there supporting Christmas I think school districts are getting
the message. I think towns and cities are getting a little bolder about what they're
willing to put out there on the public square and that's a good thing.
Part of this comes down to knowledge of what our rights are. For example, if a school district
gets a letter from one of the you name it legal groups out there on the other side of
this issue saying we'll threaten to sue if you don't do "fill in the blank" there.
Drop the Christmas carols, no more nativity scene, whatever. It's understandable if a school
official doesn't know what his or her rights are that they say, boy, we don't want a legal
challenge because we're already tight on budget, we don't want to have to send attorneys after
this so they just fold immediately. Help us understand. There's what we would like to
see happening but then there's also, and this is the logical approach, there's what the
law currently is understood to allow. Help us understand what the law; the current understanding
of it says is okay as far as nativity scenes for example.
Well nativity scenes are a good example where there are two ways that a town can include
a nativity scene in its Christmas decorations. The first is make it a public forum, meaning
all types of Christmas expression from private individuals or groups are welcome in a certain
are of the town like the town square. So you have a Christmas crèche' over here on one
side and then you'll have something from the atheists over here on other side. That's where
you have kind of a level playing field and you have to really view a lot of different
kinds of messages. And the other way is if a town wants to put up its own Christmas display,
it needs to have a secular reason for including a nativity scene and the Supreme Court has
ruled that a secular reason for including a nativity scene is that you're celebrating
the season along with all of the other seasonal events that are part of Christmas like Santa
Claus and Reindeer and Snowmen so you have this other body of law that says if you include
all these secular objects along with the nativity scene you're okay.
So if you could talk to city officials or school officials in public schools what would
be your advice be to them? What encouragement would you give them?
My advice is don't listen primarily to what the secular groups are saying because the
conclusions you're drawing are completely unconstitutional. You're actually prohibiting
the free speech, the religious speech of both children -- students as well as people in
the town and you really need to be neutral towards religion which means level playing
field for all messages at Christmastime. And if you can do that then you're going to be fine.
Alright. Bruce, thanks for those insights, very helpful.
You're welcome.
And if you'd like to share your thoughts with us, we're always ready to hear from you. Write to us
Mail@CitizenLink.com We read every message that comes in, we don't always get to answer
each one, but we do check them out as they come in. And remember, pray for elected officials
and school officials around the country as they start getting these letters from the
usual gang of suspects who just spend a lot of money on ink and paper. Pray that they'll
have wisdom, that they'll know what their rights are and they'll make wise choices when
it comes to what to do with those Christmas programs and Christmas songs and Christmas displays.
And remember, Stand Tall and Be Heard!