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I agree, but the meat of your argument is here....”Each community should be empowered to make these decisions as long as it does not interfere with our natural God given rights”.

The States and local communities are obligated, just as much as the Federal Government, to recognize those rights given to us by our Creator. Freedom of conscience is foremost among those rights.

Among the limited and enumerated powers given to the government I do not see the commemoration or celebration of religion to be among the proper role and power of the government. But I believe in a limited government of enumerated powers that recognizes the freedom of conscience of its citizens, not in a government whose obligation is to recognize the majority religious sensibilities of the local population.

"The States and local communities are obligated, just as much as the Federal Government, to recognize those rights given to us by our Creator. Freedom of conscience is foremost among those rights."

I don't know of any God given rights that are interfered with by having a display of the manger scene on the grounds of the local municipal building (as an example). If you can provide the rights that are interfered with, I'd love to hear it. I cannot find "Freedom of Conscience" in my U.S. Constitution. Many times these manger scenes were donated a long time ago by some religious group. I'm sure that if there was a problem with local government workers putting it up, you could get many volunteers to do it. If the community standards are such that they approve of this, why should the rest of us complain? Even if the community standards were that they were willing (as a community) to pay their tax dollars to maintain this display, why should the rest of us care?

This is why the federal government should be limited in scope because we are all paying for it. Quite frankly, I really don't care that Massachuesettes (sp?) has socialized health care. If that's what their state wants, I'm okay with it. If it is a failure (as I think it will be), people will leave the state and it will collapse upon itself. This is the essence of federalism.

I'll give you another example from our founders. Many states, had active militias. Some states, like Pennsylvania did not. Pa did not because of their strong anti war Quaker sensibilities. Because of that, they had problems in defending themselves and their communities from Indian attacks. That's the decision that the residents of Pennsylvania made.