OPINION:
There are some who can’t stand the Christmas season. A local humbug might end up with coal in his stocking for spreading gloom during what should be a time of joy. It’s different when the spoilsport happens to hold a position of governmental authority.
Every year around this time, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty hunts high and low — mostly low — for the state, local or federal officials embodying the spirit of Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge. This season, that great dishonor falls on Mayor Miko Pickett of Mullins, South Carolina.
Beginning last month, a group of volunteers toiled away to set up festive decorations in the city marketplace. They intended to inspire cheer among the families strolling through the area. No public funds were used to install the snowman, the wreaths or the Nativity scene, but that wasn’t good enough for the mayor, who kicked off the controversy by insisting that the creche had to go.
“I would like to clarify my reported comment about the nativity scene. I requested that the nativity scene be removed solely from the public parking area. The reason for this is the separation of Church and State applies to municipalities as well, regarding religious symbols on public property and parks. We are a community composed of various ethnicities and religious beliefs,” Ms. Pickett wrote on Facebook.
Her honor was careful to note that she, personally, doesn’t oppose faith-based displays. She claimed the law compelled her actions. After receiving the order, Kimberly Byrd, the committee’s head, politely declined to comply. She knew it would be improper to nullify her team’s hard work.
Becket offered a “Tiny Tim Toast” to Ms. Byrd because she understands that “The true meaning of Christmas is not Santa, it is The Birth of Jesus Christ.”
There is no room for doubt about who is right as a legal matter. There hasn’t been a real dispute in this regard since the Supreme Court settled it 40 years ago. In a ruling, the justices blessed Pawtucket, Rhode Island’s decision to place a Nativity scene in its shopping district.
“To forbid the use of this one passive symbol — the creche — at the very time people are taking note of the season with Christmas hymns and carols in public schools and other public places, and while the Congress and legislatures open sessions with prayers by paid chaplains, would be a stilted overreaction contrary to our history and to our holdings,” Justice Warren Burger wrote.
Tradition prevailed, as canceling Christmas would merely be a backdoor way of establishing an atheist perspective on higher powers, a theology in its own right, to the public. The Soviet Union tried that a century ago when the Bolsheviks seized magnificent Orthodox cathedrals and converted them into dreary museums of non-religion.
That’s why it is important to defend traditional religious symbols against those who would banish them from the public square in the name of “fairness” to other systems of belief.
“It takes a special kind of scroogery to rob the townspeople of Christmas joy by coming after a Nativity scene,” Becket President Mark Rienzi said in a statement. “During this season of hope and charity, we should be protecting our neighbors’ right to express their faith freely, not banishing them for it. May this Ebenezer Award help governmental hearts everywhere grow three sizes next year.” Amen.
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