Challenging the Christmas “Grinch” in New York and Florida

A News Alert from the Thomas More Law Center

***Thomas More Law Center to be featured tomorrow morning (Friday, December 10th) on the FOX News Channel's FOX & Friends program. Tune in tommorrow at 8:20 AM (EST)!***

ANN ARBOR, MI — With less than three weeks to go before Americans celebrate the national Christmas holiday, two prominent legal cases dealing with government policies that discriminate against Christmas religious displays during the holy season have each reached a critical stage. The Thomas More Law Center is fighting two separate cases, one in New York City and the other in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, over policies that outlaw the public display of the Christian Nativity while permitting the display of symbols of other religions.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center commented Thursday, “Christmas is under siege throughout our nation, and the cases in New York and Bay Harbor Islands demonstrate the kind of hostility and double standard being used by officials to deny Christians the right to publicly celebrate one of their holiest seasons.”

In New York City, Law Center attorney Robert Muise will present oral argument Monday before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the Law Center’s case against the New York City Department of Education. The Law Center filed a federal lawsuit, challenging New York City’s policy that encourages and permits the display of the Jewish Menorah during Hanukkah and the Islamic star and crescent during Ramadan in the more than 1200 public schools in the City, but prohibits the similar display of the Christian Nativity during Christmas.

The appeal was filed after Senior U.S. District Court Judge Charles Sifton ruled that the City’s discriminatory policy was permissible because it was an accommodation of “multiculturalism” and “an attempt to diversify the season and provide non-Christian holidays with parity.”

Separately, Florida U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia Altonaga is expected to rule early next week on a request for a temporary restraining order that would require the Town of Bay Harbor Islands to allow a Christian resident to the display the Nativity alongside existing Jewish Menorahs.

The emergency request was filed as a part of a federal lawsuit against the Town of Bay Harbor Islands for its practice of displaying exclusively Jewish religious symbols while prohibiting the similar display of a Christian Nativity. The Town had adorned the lampposts lining its main street with Jewish Menorahs and Stars of David and allowed a Jewish synagogue to display its Menorah in the most prominent, public location at the entrance of the town. However, the town denied a Christian resident permission for the second consecutive year to display her Christian Nativity scenes.

In a hearing in Miami earlier this week, Law Center attorney Edward White argued that Bay Harbor Islands is discriminating against Christians by violating the free speech rights of resident Sandra Snowden, who had been denied the right to display her private Nativity in a public forum. Town attorneys defended their policy, arguing that the Menorah can be displayed because it is a secular symbol and not a religious one, unlike the Nativity.

The Menorah is a secular symbol?