Christmas Campaign to Protect Religious Liberty Launches Again
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
November 29, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Christian legal group is once again unveiling its campaign to protect the free-speech rights of believers during the Christmas season, while educating government organizations and liberal legal challengers about those rights.Florida-based Liberty Counsel has announced its second annual "Friend or Foe" Christmas campaign. The effort is designed to help the nonprofit legal group spread the word that it will sue any government agency that discriminates against public displays of religious symbols or songs. At the same time, Liberty Counsel wants public employees and officials to know that it will defend any governmental entity that allows the equal expression of religious viewpoints.
Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, says the Christian firm "will be [a] friend of the schools or governmental entities that want to engage in correct activity during Christmas," meaning those that "honor both the Christian and religious aspects of the holiday like they honor the secular aspects." But on the other hand, he warns, government organizations and civil liberties groups can expect Liberty Counsel to be their foe "when they try to intentionally exclude Christ from Christmas, when they try to say that religious symbols or religious songs are not permissible."
Mat Staver | |
Staver says every Christmas season liberal groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State step up efforts to try to remove references to Christ from holiday songs, plays, and decorations on government property. Also, he notes, during the holiday season Liberty Counsel receives an influx of calls and questions regarding religious displays.Last year in Wisconsin, Staver recalls, a public school told students to change "religious" words in the Christmas carols they were to sing during a Christmas concert, forbidding them to use any references to "Jesus" or "God" and insisting that the students substitute secular words. And in Georgia, also last year, a public school instructed its employees not to conduct any Christmas-related activities at all. They were prohibited from reading books on the subject, making Christmas decorations, and displaying candy canes (because of the religious story associated with the candy's origin). In some cases, school employees were even told they could not wear Christmas-related attire.
But the law is very clear, the attorney asserts, in stating that religious references are by no means forbidden in a publicly-funded setting. For example, he explains that Christian Christmas carols may be sung by student groups in public schools provided they also sing secular songs, and individual students may sing Christian carols as part of an overall presentation if secular songs are also a part of it.
Even "publicly sponsored Nativity scenes on public property, by city hall for example, are clearly constitutional," Staver says. "A display on city property can have Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus [in the scene], so long as somewhere in the context you have a secular symbol of the holiday, such as Santa Claus."
The Liberty Counsel president says schools may not prohibit students access to religious books, because to do so would constitute religious viewpoint discrimination. And in the case of privately sponsored Nativity scenes, he points out, Christian-themed Christmas decorations erected and displayed by private citizens or groups in a public area are also constitutional, and they do not require that a secular symbol be part of the display.
Staver says last year's "Friend or Foe" campaign averted a number of lawsuits, and Liberty Counsel is determined to make sure that happens this year as well. "We are resolved to stop the Grinch from stealing Christmas," he says. "This nation was founded by people who sought to freely exercise their religious liberties. We have no intention of letting these liberties fall by the wayside or be chilled every holiday season by uninformed or hostile government officials."
Mat Staver has written a book called Faith and Freedom: A Complete Handbook for Defending Your Religious Rights (Liberty Counsel, 1998) to help individuals understand what the law has to say about religious symbols, Christmas decorations, and other displays in public schools and the public square. He encourages Christians to become more aware of how the U.S. Constitution and other laws offer protection of citizens' religious liberty.
