{"id":187,"date":"2009-06-22T10:50:50","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T10:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/are-marshmallow-peeps-religiou.html"},"modified":"2009-06-22T10:50:50","modified_gmt":"2009-06-22T10:50:50","slug":"are-marshmallow-peeps-religiou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/are-marshmallow-peeps-religiou.html","title":{"rendered":"Are Marshmallow Peeps Religious Icons?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have a certain endearing respect for Peeps, those marshmallow creations which used to be seen solely in the form of chickens and rabbits at Easter but now have a ubiquitous presence during every holiday period.&nbsp; The creatures come from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marshmallowpeeps.com\/\">Just Born candy company <\/a>in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the place I grew up.&nbsp; (Even earlier, during the Depression, my father swept floors at the company.)<\/p>\n<p>Now, Peeps are playing a role, admittedly a supporting one, in a strange &#8220;religious liberty&#8221; case in Colorado. As reported in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coloradodaily.com\/news\/2009\/jun\/20\/eviction-easter-bunnies-boulder-county-woman-asks-\/\">local newspaper<\/a>, Carol Burdick was evicted from her apartment for keeping her Easter decorations on her door 17 days after Easter, an alleged violation of her lease provision to keep all areas under the tenant&#8217;s control &#8220;in a clean and sanitary condition.&#8221; Her display included cardboard cutouts of chickens and rabbits, some plastic grass, and some Peeps.&nbsp; Later this week she will argue that the leasing company violated Ms. Burdick&#8217;s religious freedom.&nbsp; Her lawyer noted: &#8220;You can&#8217;t evict somebody for Easter bunny decorations.&nbsp; An Easter decoration is a religious statement and should be protected&#8211; even if it is just bunnies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This poses an interesting question, Jay, for which I need your response.&nbsp; If Ms. Burdick thinks Easter candy and rabbit stickers are a symbol of her religious committment, is that all it takes to make a threshold argument that your religious liberty has been violated?&nbsp; If so, should this claim trump the landlord&#8217;s desire to keep a&nbsp;litter-free apartment complex?&nbsp; Further,&nbsp;since the landlord allows decorations up for some period, can he define the length of time they are allowed up&nbsp;when a tenant wishes to keep them up longer?&nbsp; Would it make a difference if there were no Peeps in the display since arguably they could &#8220;go bad&#8221; as most foods do (although I have personally never seen a Peep I couldn&#8217;t eat, no matter how old)?<\/p>\n<p>Is this actually important?&nbsp; I&#8217;d say it raises some intriguing questions about&nbsp; freedom of speech, freedom of religion, how &#8220;religion&#8221; is defined by courts, and how exercising one&#8217;s faith can have an impact on others.&nbsp; Personally, I&#8217;m hoping that Ms. Burdick prevails&#8211;at least on a claim of &#8220;freedom from stupidity&#8221; if not &#8220;freedom of religion&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a certain endearing respect for Peeps, those marshmallow creations which used to be seen solely in the form of chickens and rabbits at Easter but now have a ubiquitous presence during every holiday period.&nbsp; The creatures come from the Just Born candy company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the place I grew up.&nbsp; (Even earlier,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,36],"tags":[178,180,181,179,182,51,177],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-free-speech","tag-bethlehem-pennsylvania","tag-carol-burdick","tag-colorado-courts","tag-easter","tag-eviction","tag-news","tag-peeps"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are Marshmallow Peeps Religious Icons? - 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\/2009\/06\/are-marshmallow-peeps-religiou.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are Marshmallow Peeps Religious Icons? - Lynn v. 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Lynn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/are-marshmallow-peeps-religiou.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/are-marshmallow-peeps-religiou.html","name":"Are Marshmallow Peeps Religious Icons? - Lynn v. 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Sekulow","description":"A debate blog about church, state, faith and politics with Jay Sekulow and Barry W. Lynn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/98ebaf547801cce8ce6fff4c27f51fc8","name":"Rev. Barry W. 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\/187","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=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}