Word: pawtucket
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...relaxed: why we cannot, in the spirit of the Christmas season, simply overlook a city government's decision to set up a creche, on public ground. Indeed, when lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Council of Churches brought suit against the city of Pawtucket, R.I. for violating the separation of church and state by putting up a creche, public sympathy ran low. Even the local B'nai B'rith group reportedly asked the ACLU lawyer, "it's been there so long, why did you even bring...
...reindeer. Why not find some good will in the symbols rather than governmental sponsorship of a religion? The majority opinion contends that "The display engenders a friendly community spirit of good will in keeping with the season." But good will at what price? As the dissent points out, Pawtucket may have a valid "secular reason" (good will and increased retail sales) for setting up the display, but are life-sized figures of Jesus. Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, kings and animals the only way to encourage such secular motives? Equally effective would have been the merry Santa scene without the religious...
Perhaps, but by setting up a creche in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic community of Pawtucket, the city government does seem to come out endorsing a particular religious belief rather than a spirit of good will. "Those who believe in the message of the Nativity receive the unique and exclusive benefit of public recognition and approval of their views," Justice Brennan writes in his dissent. "The effect on the minority religious groups, as well as on those who many reject all religion, is to convey the message that their views are not similarly worthy of public recognition nor entitled to public...
...PAWTUCKET is not intolerant, and by all accounts the creche, which had been set up for almost 40 years, was not a symbol of religious oppression in the town. The creche seemed to reflect the majority's sentiment and the minority did not seem to care. Excessive entanglement or approval of a particular religion may not be a serious problem in the Rhode Island community, but there are some places in the United States where setting up a creche would be just one more symbol of a community where it is difficult to be a Jew or an atheist. Places...
...issues are not the same size. Many who could not care less about the crèche in Pawtucket would go to the wall of separation on the school-prayer decision, but both issues derive from minority protests. Without malice or belligerence, a Christian could reasonably ask: Whose country is it anyway...