Like Christmases Past

By William R. Doerner

Nativity scenes bring a harsh cacophony of jingle bells and legal jangles

The Christmas lights on the sturdy, 30-ft. Colorado blue spruce blinked on at precisely 5:52 last Thursday evening, revealing a dazzling pattern of poinsettias that sparkled cheerfully against the capital's skyline. A large screen showed Ronald and Nancy Reagan presiding over the annual lighting ceremony of the national Christmas tree from the South Portico of the White House, 500 yards away. The President did what the heads of many U.S. families do at Christmas observances: reflect on the meaning of the celebration, offer hope for the less fortunate and remember those who must spend this most personal of holidays away from home. "For many of us, Christmas is a deeply holy day," Reagan told 20,000 people gathered in springlike 58DEG weather. "For others, Christmas marks the birth of a good, great man ... Either way, the message remains the guiding star of our endeavors."

Washington's official celebration, echoed in festivals of light and countless other wassailings across the nation, was called the Christmas Pageant of Peace. Held on the Ellipse, a 52-acre circular park between the White House and the Washington Monument, it included not only the elaborately decorated national Christmas tree but also 56 smaller ones representing the states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. In addition, the National Zoo installed nine live reindeer near by, and each day a traditional yule log is set ablaze. That feature proved less than popular during last Thursday's balmy weather. "That's what happens when you have a weatherman for Santa Claus," cracked red-suited TV Forecaster Willard Scott, the master of ceremonies.

The final element in this year's pageant was a creche, an assemblage of near life-size figures around a manger scene representing Christ's birth. The display included painted representations of Joseph and Mary, the gift-bearing Magi, two angels and assorted animals--20 pieces in all. It would have been wholly unremarkable, similar to thousands of others, except for one thing: this particular Nativity scene was reappearing in the festival after an enforced and highly controversial absence of eleven years, the hostage in a legal dispute involving the constitutional separation of church and state.

Thanks to a Supreme Court decision earlier in the year, Nativity scenes this season also adorn the public parks and buildings of some municipalities that had ceased putting them up while the issue was in dispute. But the Supreme Court's ruling, permitting the city of Pawtucket, R.I., to erect a creche, failed to settle the matter. Creche critics, insisting that many of the displays still represent unlawful government sponsorship of church activity, are seeking to severely limit the court's ruling. As a result, the jingle bells of the season once again were interrupted by the jangle of legal discord. Items:

> In Chicago, after an aide to Mayor Harold Washington ordered the removal of a plaster Nativity scene that has decorated city ha11 for 45 years, public outrage generated by the mayor's political rivals forced him to reverse the decision within 48 hours. Then the First Amendment Foundation, a civil liberties group, announced it would sue to get the reversal reversed. Among other things, the dustup prompted an ugly rash of anti-Semitic phone calls to a local radio talk show, even though it was never established that Jewish groups had complained about the creche in the first place.

> In the well-off New York City suburb of Scarsdale, a Nativity scene that occupied space in a public park during the Christmas season from 1957 to 1980 has become the subject of a two-year legal tussle between its private owners and the village's board of trustees. The board voted to deny permission for the creche after it became a source of local controversy. Last October the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to rule on an appellate decision requiring the board to continue making the park available for the display. The court's decision, due in the spring, is expected to clarify the latitude available to government officials in permitting creches in public facilities. Meanwhile, the Scarsdale creche is spending its third Christmas in storage.

> In the Detroit suburb of Birmingham, Federal District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in July forbade the placement of a creche in front of city hall. When the city last month asked for a stay of her order pending appeal of its case, the judge sternly denied it. Said she: "It is extremely unfortunate that the city of Birmingham wishes to continue to send a message of rejection to all those ... citizens who are not Christian."

> Officials of Charlottesville, Va., and Larchmont, N.Y., decided this year not to set up Nativity scenes long customary in both cities rather than face possible court challenges to their legality.

> The Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.) last week warned the Tempe City Council that it might seek an injunction ordering removal of a display of the three Wise Men climbing Tempe Butte toward a five-cornered Christmas star. The figures have appeared on the butte at Christmas time for at least 40 years.

Creches appear annually on public property with little or no fuss in thousands of other towns and cities, especially small ones where churches remain at the center of community life. Even metropolises are not necessarily prone to controversy. For example, a privately owned Nativity scene has been erected since 1947 on Boston Common, the nation's oldest public park, with only a brief flurry of protest two years ago.

The Interior Department's decision to reinstate a creche in the national celebration was based on a reading of the high court's Pawtucket opinion, which was handed down in March. Writing for the slim majority of five, Chief Justice Warren Burger rejected the argument that the Pawtucket manger scene violated the First Amendment's prohibition against government "establishment" of religion. He concluded instead that the creche is a "passive" symbol that is "no more an advancement or an endorsement of religion than ... the exhibition of literally hundreds of religious paintings in governmentally supported museums." In a concurring opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor raised a more specific argument: "The creche is a traditional symbol of the holiday that is very commonly displayed along with purely secular symbols, as it was in Pawtucket."

O'Connor's observation has been seized on by both sides in the dispute as a convenient rule of thumb for determining whether any single display may violate the separation principle. In Washington, notes Interior Department Attorney Rick Robbins, "the creche is one small part of a very large event that includes reindeer, a yule log, Christmas trees, a stage. It's not like we are sponsoring only a creche." By the same token, opponents of Nativity scenes in Scarsdale and Birmingham have made much of the fact that both displays stood alone. Says A.C.L,U. Legal Director Burt Neuborne: "In the absence of a general display, it would appear to be a religious endorsement."

The standards set by the high court trouble some thoughtful non-believers and believers alike. Says Marc Pearl, Washington representative of the American Jewish Congress, which has opposed the placement of a menorah (a candelabrum with nine candlesticks) in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House in celebration of Hanukkah: "Religious symbols do not belong on government property. While it may be legally O.K., it sends certain ominous signals to minority religions." For some Christians, the court's view of creches as secular as well as religious symbols profanes the spirit of the holiday. "To me it is trivializing the meaning of Christmas," says Charles V. Bergstrom, governmental-affairs director of the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. "Next to the Resurrection, the Christ child is the deepest religious symbol in Christianity."

At the conclusion of a year in which the proper roles of church and state frequently entered the political debate, freedom of worship stands as a more basic right than ever. There will always be disagreements on how best to exercise and preserve that right, and exactly what constitutes a violation of it. As a society of laws, the U.S. looks to Congress and the courts to settle such issues. It should also look, at least occasionally, to the message that traveled with the Christmas star toward Bethlehem one night nearly 2,000 years ago: good will toward men.

--By William R. Doemer.

Reported by Anne Constable/Washington, with other bureaus

With reporting by Anne Constable, other bureaus