Crèche Wars

January 6, 2001

by John F. Schmidt

If you thought the new government in Afghanistan has its hands full trying to get all the disparate tribal elements of the country to cooperate in forming a ruling council, you ought to try governing a gated community at Christmas time.

West Palm Beach, Florida is my home base for now: the land of dimpled chads and sunshine year around. A neighbor who served on a village council several years ago related a tale of religious fractiousness during the time of peace and love. Maybe you have heard of similar fights.

The governing council decided to put up Christmas decorations at the entrance to the community. Before the project got off the ground, one of the religious minorities protested that they felt a symbol of their religion ought to be included as well. Since that religion only represented a minority in this area, the village manager replied, somewhat unwisely perhaps, that there was not going to be a ‘minority religious symbol’ at the entrance gate. Those aren’t his exact words, but your imagination can fill in the details.

TV news camera crews greeted homecoming residents that evening, looking for a story and opinions. They lacked for neither. A general brouhaha ensued over the next week, played out in the evening news. This normally placid community was turned upside down by the contention and attempts to resolve the dispute.

All holiday decorations were finally banned at the entrance gate. The decision was reached after stormy debate on the color of the holiday non-sectarian lights draped on the bushes and trees. White lights seemed to be non-sectarian and non-religious enough, but someone balked at that, too. Eventually, the disgusted residents even voted down the lighting.

That was several years ago, and I noticed this season that the lights are back; they are non-religious and non-sectarian: and no religious symbols sit by the gate.

This is but one of a multitude of struggles over public displays of religious symbols that occur all over the country each Christmas holiday season. The shot and shell expended over these debates would have settled the Afghanistan war much earlier if it had been spent there rather than here against our neighbors.

But the struggle contains some real issues that merit our attention because it constitutes a warning about one possible future for us.

Is the Christmas crèche issue one worthy of a civil rights lawsuit? The ACLU certainly thinks so. Every year we hear of cities and towns being sued (or at least threatened) if crosses, crèches, menorahs and other assorted religious symbols are not removed from public property forthwith. It is not enough in most cases to allow everyone’s particular display to be openly displayed. Any hint of God must go. Never mind that since the country’s founding such displays were universal and unremarkable.

Today’s frequent ire against public displays with any religious content must have a cause that is not found in our country’s history or origins. In our past, such issues were settled locally, and with relatively little fanfare. Neighbors of various religious and ethnic backgrounds could and did get together and decide such matters without literally making a federal case out of it.

Perhaps the reason many are so quick to jump on the lawsuit bandwagon is that they know in the give and take of free debate, they lose. The courts, by creating law from the bench, have fashioned themselves a very attractive tool for some who otherwise would never prevail in the court of free public debate. Liberal judges often award victory to those who could never win in a free society.

Public displays containing religious content are often ruled “unconstitutional” because they are presumed to violate a clause that forbids mixing church and state. The truth is, to erect a Christmas crèche on public property is not to “establish religion” in the First Amendment sense, since “religion” in the minds of the framers, meant a sect of Christianity - not an expression of belief in God. Today’s popularly held definition of religion is not the same as the founder’s. Even the Supreme Court and the Congress get confused about this, and they ought to know better.

If the modern interpretation of the issue of separation of church and state was so fundamental to the founder’s notions (as it is often so stridently asserted), then it should be an easy fact to demonstrate from the writings of the founders. In fact, the opposite is true. George Washington’s farewell speech is a good example of the attitude of a prominent founder toward mixing church and state. Washington, or any of the early founders, would have been scandalized by the opinions modern liberals attribute to them and the constitution.

Can a community use public property and funds to erect religious displays that represent the convictions of at least a majority of the community? On this point we may discern the basis of a familiar formula for resolving conflicts: majority rule.

It is not illegal or wrong if the majority of citizens in a particular political district choose to put up some kind of public religious display. The rule is that the exhibit must be supported by a majority of the citizens it represents. Resorting to lawsuits is a very recent tactic usually intended to intimidate the authorities. When courts rule rightly, they recognize that religious people have rights, too: not just the atheists. And the religious people are usually the majority.

There is no constitutional amendment that says a person has the right to sue if they are offended by someone else’s expression of religion, even if it is publicly funded. If a person can rightfully prevent his tax dollars from being used to fund a religious exhibit on public property, then it also should be possible to stop taxpayer-supported abortions because they are offensive to the fundamental beliefs of Christians and Jews. It is the same principle, right?

Must everyone’s religion be represented if any single one is represented? This is a most interesting idea: just let everybody put up something representing his or her beliefs. The mischief begins when someone (usually a person with an axe to grind against believers in God) decides to spoof organized religion by erecting some memorial that is insulting to the Christians and/or the Jews. Getting that display removed usually involves the ‘compromise’ of removing all the others also, unless the authorities don’t mind being sued. The removal of all religious displays was the goal in the first place, of course.

Besides, is the opinion of one percent of the population due a place in a Christmas crèche platform? Maybe. To be fair, perhaps it is due one percent of the platform, and the majority gets to decide where.

Power belongs to the majority. The importance of this principle was never so clearly shown as in the recent presidential election in Florida. The whole dispute was about who had the majority of the votes: Bush or Gore. The stakes were nothing less than control of the U. S. government. That struggle for power illustrates the extreme importance we place on the authority of the majority.

We should not fall for the idea that the minority has somehow acquired a superior moral position simply because they are in the minority. Should all underdogs automatically win? The answer is obvious.

That is why the cries of ‘unfair’ are so misleading. “Unfair” is the cry of someone who wants to win even though they have lost. “Our taxes go to support this community and we want our voice heard,” is usually the way it is phrased. Sounds right, doesn’t it? And of course, if the majority is gracious; there is usually some limited way to accommodate their neighbors. But one fact is frequently forgotten in these disputes. The underlying rules for getting along in our local communities take their pattern from our form of national government. The majority decides who runs the government, and what policies the government will support. We all know how important that power is. Are we going to tolerate that principle being overturned at the local level, where it impacts us in our face every day? We should not.

The majority are supposed to be the winners. To try to overturn the will of the majority via the courts is seen by most Americans as intrinsically unfair. We Americans agreed in the beginning that forming majorities is all about who gets to exercise power. That is the basic plan of fair and representative government. That should be the basic approach to settling crèche wars, too.

Forbidding all religious displays is not a solution. In the Florida case, the complaining minority could not be satisfied (and they usually cannot be), so the solution was the total elimination of religious displays during the holidays. That decision trampled on the right of the majority to live in a community that represents who they are and what they believe. It usurped their freedom, and exalted the tiniest minority to the supreme position of power. Thus the ones who end up ruling are the non-believers - the atheists and the skeptics, for they are the minority who believe the least, and who will be most offended by any public religious exercise whatsoever.

So, I am going to venture a proposal. The next time such a dispute arises, let a vote be taken. After a fair and open debate in which all interested parties have their say, let the people craft a policy and let it be adopted by vote. Adopt the plan that the majority is happy with. Whatever the majority decides, in a non-coerced vote (ACLU begone), let that be the policy.

The reason American civilization has been so successful is that we have operated within the framework of mutual cooperation and mutual submission. We will not continue to be successful if we begin to operate like rival fiefdoms, each shrilly demanding our rights against all others. We will become like the people of Afghanistan, or the Balkans, or any place where people must be restrained from killing one another by outside force because they cannot agree on a common, fair way to settle their differences.

We already know the answer. Let’s insist on it being used. Our public affairs - and our crèche wars - should not be conducted like we were Afghans.

__________________________________________

John F. Schmidt has written numerous articles over the last decade. Politically, he is an Alan Keyes-type Republican. Along with his wife, he has organized voter drives in Pennsylvania, and been active politically since the 1990 elections. His livelihood, until recently, was spent in automation engineering for a large global equipment manufacturing company, specializing in coal mining. WANB in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania hosted Schmidt's weekly talk radio program "Issues and Answers." His writing is intended to relate the headlines of today to the foundation of eternal truth - the Scriptures. He currently resides in Palm Beach County, Florida. Visit his website at: Inalienable-Rights.org

Send the author an E mail at Schmidt@ConservativeTruth.org.

For more of John's articles, visit his archives.


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