DriveThru – Get What You Need

Michigan, the neighboring state to one of the more noisy atheist organizations when it comes to complaining about celebrating Christmas in the public square, is the scene of this year’s first “atheists-complained-so-you-can’t-have-a-crèche” brouhaha. Story  here, and the lawsuit is here.

Seems to me that local governments are way too skittish when it comes to complaints from folks with official sounding names like “Freedom from Religion Foundation.” The knee-jerk reaction of this Michigan county to deny a permit for what has become a yearly Christmas tradition is sadly typical. The only thing worse than a bully is a person who cowers at the first sign of a bully.

Kudos to the Christmas crèche defenders who didn’t join the county in its unconditional surrender, but decided to see if perhaps the First Amendment might just dictate a different result.

The constitutional issues are rather simple, despite the huffing and puffing in FFRF’s letter to the county. If the county in this case grants permits for residents to put all types of expressive materials in county-owned medians, then it can’t engage in viewpoint discrimination and bar a religious message from what is, for First Amendment purposes, a “public forum.” If the totality of the facts indicate that the county’s medians don’t rise to the level of public forums, then this particular crèche may ultimately have to end up on private property somewhere. 

On the flip side, the “public forum” scenario works in favor of the FFRF folks as well as for anyone else. They should be able to put up a “Bah, Humbug” display under the same terms and conditions as anyone else. If they’re going to disapprove of Christmas, they might as well do it out in the open where we can all take note, rather than hiding behind a threatening letter.