Posted on 12/25/2003 5:42:33 AM PST by randita
Crèche finds home at Palm Beach church
By Tim O'Meilia, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 25, 2003
PALM BEACH -- A blue-eyed baby Jesus -- fashioned from Italian resin -- looked out from his manger at the Bethesda-by-the-Sea parishioners filing by dressed in their holiday best on their way to the 4 p.m. Christmas Eve children's service.
Mary and Joseph looked lovingly at the infant. Three shepherds, two sheep and a donkey stood nearby. Two foreign kings approached, gifts in hand. Overhead, a cherub watched.
This is the Nativity scene two Palm Beach residents wanted to donate to Palm Beach to place on town land near a menorah and Christmas tree on Royal Poinciana Way. For fear of running askew of U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the Palm Beach Town Council denied the request Tuesday.
It's already a federal case, anyway, and likely to be for some time to come.
"I completed what I wanted to do," said Maureen Donnell, who joined Fern Tailer deNarvaez in suing the town in federal court Dec. 15 to force the town to act. "We put up our Nativity display, just not where we wanted it. I wanted it next to the menorah, but we sent out our message."
They sent out another message Wednesday, thanking their supporters in full-page ads in The Palm Beach Post and the Palm Beach Daily News.
The women first made their request in September, but the town council did not put it on a meeting agenda until a federal judge ordered them to act by noon Wednesday. Just before the deadline Wednesday, town officials filed papers in federal court saying the council had decided.
Soon after, a lawyer from the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., which is representing the women in the federal suit, renewed their request for an order to allow the crèche beside the menorah.
But it was far too late for a judge to decide such a thorny church-state constitutional issue before Christmas.
Last week, Richard Thompson, founder and director of the Thomas More Law Center, said he was willing to take it to the highest court in the land.
The law center calls itself a public interest firm "dedicated to the defense and promotion of religious freedom for Christians." It has a suit pending against New York City public schools for allowing displays of menorahs and Islamic crescents but not Nativity scenes.
The issue arose when the town accepted the donation last year of two menorahs to stand with the town's traditional Christmas trees. Attorney Les Evans said he gave them as a symbol of tolerance in a town once known for the exclusion of Jews and others from private clubs. The town stores and maintains the donated trees and menorahs.
"Our clients have requested from the beginning to have the Nativity displayed alongside the approved menorahs. The double standard used by the town is as shocking as it is offensive," Thompson said.
Two council members apologized for not acting earlier on the women's request, and Mayor Lesly Smith and Council President Bill Brooks said they personally approved of the crèche but they followed the legal advice of Town Attorney John Randolph in denying the request.
Randolph relied on 1989 and 1984 Supreme Court rulings that said a menorah displayed with a secular Christmas tree became a secular symbol but that a menorah and a crèche together fostered the establishment of religion by appearing to favor two over others.
The legal distinction between secular and religious menorahs was lost on most of those who attended Tuesday's town council meeting.
"For us to put the Nativity scene in the median of Royal Poinciana Way with the menorah, the ACLU would be on us with a lawsuit by the afternoon," Brooks said.
Donnell and deNarvaez promised to pursue the issue through the court.
"This is not the war," deNarvaez said. "This is just one battle."
tim_omeilia@pbpost.com
Find this article at: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/thursday/news_f3ae75af204ea1580044.html
Someone, please explain this. It sounds like reasoning only Clinton would get away with.
That said, religious items belong in religious places. Move the menorah back to the local temple and the creche to Bethesda's. The Christmas Tree/Hannukah Bush/Tannenbaum/holiday-decorated tree is secular and should stay.
My two cents.
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