Molly Ivins November 13PITTSBURGH — First annual sighting of the creche controversy! Hooray, hoorah — the festive, seasonal creche controversy is back, with the first specimen of the year showing up in beautiful downtown Pittsburgh. How we all enjoy the annual fistfight over how to salute Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men. Every year, in an excess of seasonal exuberance, some citizen — in this case the Diocesan Holy Name Society — decides to display a Nativity scene in a prominent public place. A lovely idea, enjoyed by all. Alas, some other citizens always decide that the perfect place for said Nativity scene is the center of some government building, in this case the Allegheny County Courthouse. Judging from the sound of the Allegheny County commissioners, the Nativity scene may be the only way they'll ever get three wise men in that building. It seems that the county commissioners have already been through this mill once and didn't learn a darn thing. In 1989, the courthouse Nativity scene was declared unconstitutional after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the county government was, in effect, promoting the Christian religion. But Commissioners Dunn and Cranmer (locally known as "Dumb and Dumber") have decided to test once more the strength of the court's determination to keep government out of religion. The Supremes have declared in recent cases that religious symbols may be displayed along with secular Christmas symbols, so we are now down to debating degrees of decoration. For example, if jolly old St. Nick is coming down the chimney to greet Baby Jesus, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is dancing on the roof with some of the attendant sheep, will the display pass? If we throw in a menorah and some stuff from Kwanzaa, will be it be OK? Or are we addling our poor children's minds and creating theological and cultural hash? The Supremes have further muddied the water by saying that government property can be used to display religious symbols if the public property in question is a traditional site for public expressions of sentiment. (The case in question involved a cross put up by the Ku Klux Klan in a Columbus, Ohio, park.
I once found a splendid display of secular seasonal celebration in the main post office in Adelaide, Australia. It was 6-foot statue of a kangaroo wearing a Santa hat and dark glasses (Christmas comes in summer there) with a present in her pouch. Christmas trees are acceptable in all locales, although the churches will want to reconsider because the tree tradition originally came from pagan Germans. Personally, I don't worry about the cultural confusion of children created by such phenomenon as Santy at the manger, an arrangement I first saw in a Dallas lawn display. It's my impression that most children go through a period of thinking Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear is the Son of God, but they generally get it straightened out eventually — resilient creatures. The regular villain in the creche controversy is the American Civil Liberties Union, playing its assigned role in the case as Grinch with weary resignation. Few things will make you less popular than suing someone at Christmastime for unseemly religious display. Every year, I beg them, "Couldn't you wait 'til after New Year's?" But no, every year, they insist on reminding us of all this tiresome separation-of-church-and-state stuff. You know who thought that stuff up, don't you? Those pesky Founding Fathers. In fact, one of them, James Madison, actually wrote down why they did it. "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries." Oh. That. Like, perhaps, the soil of Bosnia, still wet with blood, some of it apparently from Muslim virgins who were raped as a matter of policy by their Christian neighbors? That kind of ceaseless strife? That our own ceaseless strife comes down to these silly creche cases every Christmas is a tribute to the genius of the founders. I suggest that we continue to observe their precious separation for precisely the reason that Mr. Madison cited. It's a principle of some importance. It's even worth having the ACLU be a pain in the behind about it every Christmas. We might even avoid the annual lawsuits over it if we all acted like grown-ups and saved our religious displays for private property. Ho-ho-ho. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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