They can’t ban it anymore!
This is complicated–Supreme Court cases usually are–but it’s good news, so stay with it. Let me try to boil it down for you.
The court has voided a 1971 ruling–the ultra-complicated “Lemon test”–and decided that government (local, state, and federal) has no authority to ban Christmas displays on public property (https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/12/christmas-be-celebrated-free-lemon-test/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=christmas-be-celebrated-free-lemon-test).
A statement from Liberty Counsel: “Today, the law is clear… The First Amendment does not permit any city, state, or the federal government to eliminate religious viewpoints regarding a federally and state-recognized holiday.”
And this’ll make the leftids scream: It was a 9-0 decision! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, ACLU. It’ll be better for you than whatever you’ve been smoking, all these years.
As for the Lemon test, that’s been discarded–forget it, it’s history. The court did a lot of things wrong in the 1960s and 70s. That was one of them.
Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion. There are a lot of religions with which I disagree, but my freedom to practice as I see fit also guarantees the freedom of others to practice as they see fit. I recall driving past a home which erected a crèche (nativity scene), every Halloween, with scary creatures all around and a pumpkin in place of Christ. You can bet your last nickel that I didn’t like this, even in the slightest, but I respected their rights to do so. Even though I found that display offensive to my sensibilities, their freedom to erect it was directly tied to my freedom to do as I saw fit.
Actually we have a right to view something like that with disrespect. What we don’t have is a right to do anything about it. We have an obligation to obey the Constitution, which is law. It requires us to keep the peace–it does not require us to pretend to approve of things we despise.
Certainly. If the guy with the Halloween crèche had ask my opinion, I would have been glad to let him know that I was not impressed and thought it in the poorest of taste, not to mention the disrespect it showed for Christ, but I never interacted with him, and I simply regarded the display as a monument to ignorance and put it out of my thoughts as quickly as it was out of sight.
It’s so glad to read about this.