In what appears to be the first battle in the "Christmas Wars" for the 2009 season, a federal lawsuit has been filed by a Warren, Michigan resident challenging the county's decision to end a 63-year old tradition of his family's displaying a privately-constructed and maintained Nativity Scene on the median of a road in the city. The complaint (
full text) in
Satawa v. Board of County Road Commissioners of Macomb County, (ED MI, filed 10/23/2009), alleges that the county's denial to plaintiff of a permit to set up the display is a content-based infringement on freedom of speech in a traditional public forum and a denial of equal protection. The county first raised an objection in 2008 after receiving a letter (
full text) from the Freedom from Religion Foundation complaining that the display on public property violates the Establishment Clause. Plaintiff removed the display last year since he had not applied for a permit. This year he applied, and was denied a permit. In addition to his speech and equal protection claims, plaintiff charges that the denial violates the Establishment Clause because it lacks a valid secular purpose and has the primary effect of inhibiting religion.
A
press release from the Thomas More Law Center, announcing the filing of the lawsuit, quotes the Center's president, Richard Thompson, who said:
Every Christmas holiday, militant atheists, acting like the Taliban, use the phrase 'separation of church and state,' — nowhere found in our constitution — as a means of intimidating municipalities and schools into removing expressions celebrating Christmas, a National Holiday.... However, the grand purpose of our Founding Fathers and the First Amendment was to protect religion, not eliminate it.... [S]ystematic exclusion of Christmas symbols during the holiday season is itself inconsistent with the Constitution.
