{"id":104,"date":"2008-12-10T17:35:34","date_gmt":"2008-12-10T17:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/12\/no-nativity-scenesno-atheist-s.html"},"modified":"2008-12-10T17:35:34","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T17:35:34","slug":"no-nativity-scenesno-atheist-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/12\/no-nativity-scenesno-atheist-s.html","title":{"rendered":"No Nativity Scenes=No Atheist Signs=OK By Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my view, there is an inherent flaw in all of these religious holiday display cases ever since the Supreme Court<\/a> allowed the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island to put up as part of its “official” display a Nativity scene along with secular symbols including Santa, reindeer, and the ever popular Yuletide “blue bears”.  According to a majority of the court this mix did not give passerbys the impression that the city was officially embracing religion.  Instead, the court should have told Pawtucket to lay off the religious references and been done with it.  Of course, since the “establishment clause” doesn’t prohibit cities from promoting secular ideas it could have lured the shopping public downtown with Santa and his elves and reindeer.  (Purist alert: I am really not losing sleep over the fact that Santa may be related to Saint Nicholas.)  Just as obviously, cities should not be allowed to promote any sectarian ideas or icons.  (The manger scene is one; the Decalogue is another.)<\/p>\n

In Olympia, Washington, the Governor did what she is required to do under an agreement <\/a>with your friends, Jay, over at the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).  Last year ADF lawyers demanded that a client be allowed to put up a Nativity scene in the capitol building because the state was already displaying a menorah.  Rather than just removing the menorah, the state agreed to allow pretty much anybody to put up his or her favorite seasonal message.  Thus, the ADF has achieved the result of preserving atheist rights this year by clearing the path to the “religion is a myth” solstice signage that is so upsetting to some in Washington state.  (What happened to their old argument: if you don’t like a cross, or a creche, just “look away”?)<\/p>\n

In regard to Pleasant Valley, I would refer back to my earlier posts on this matter.  If the Ten Commandments monument is in fact “government speech” then it violates the core constitutional principle that government cannot endorse a particular religious viewpoint.<\/p>\n

I simply don’t want to have to walk around everybody’s religious and political paraphernalia when I want to visit any state capitol building.   States don’t have to open all their facilities to everybody’s “speech” and they shouldn’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my view, there is an inherent flaw in all of these religious holiday display cases ever since the Supreme Court allowed the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island to put up as part of its “official” display a Nativity scene along with secular symbols including Santa, reindeer, and the ever popular Yuletide “blue bears”.  According to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts"],"yoast_head":"\nNo Nativity Scenes=No Atheist Signs=OK By Me - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/12\/no-nativity-scenesno-atheist-s.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"No Nativity Scenes=No Atheist Signs=OK By Me - Lynn v. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}