Buster Wilson of the American Family Association as of late has dedicated his radio program to fighting the so-called “War on Christmas,” railing against municipalities that don’t erect Nativity Scenes and stores that say “Happy Holidays.” Of course, Chick-fil-A has so far escaped his wrath even though the company easily fails the AFA’s “War on Christmas” test.
Last week, Wilson made the absurd argument that not having a Nativity Scene on public property is direct a violation of his First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and his God-given rights.
There are people who can put nativity scenes on their front lawns, it’s their private property and if they want to do that, they can do that, why do you have to have the public square as well? Here’s the reason why that’s a problem. The reason why we rebel against that is that the First Amendment of the Constitution gives every individual American the freedom of worship without any possibility of interference from the government. We don’t want the government saying you can do it here. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, we declare that these rights are God-given; they are our unalienable rights from our Creator. They are not privileges granted by our government. If they are a privilege granted by the government then the government can number one, regulate it, or number two, take it away, we have unalienable rights.
However, nativity scenes and other religious symbols are allowed on public lands as long as they are part of a larger secular display and do not convey the state sponsorship of religion, something even the conservative American Center for Law and Justice admits:
In Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of a government-erected crèche. Significantly, the Lynch Court upheld the constitutionality of the holiday display in that case because the crèche was a part of a larger holiday display in which there were a variety of secular symbols.
Today he took it a step further by saying that the courts are actually going to literally prevent people from “celebrating Christmas,” asserting that those pushing the “War on Christmas” are “using the court system of this country to force Christians to not be able to celebrate Christmas at Christmastime.”
He even suggested that President Obama’s attendance at Ramadan fast-breaking dinners shows that Christians are being slighted and Christmas marginalized.
I don’t understand, ‘you’re not the majority anymore, this is not a Christian nation and you’ve guys have got to quit trying to cram everything down people’s throats,’ nobody’s trying to cram—look, it is the folks who don’t want us celebrating Christmas that are cramming that view down our throats and using the courts to do it. So if we don’t want to start cramming things down people’s throats, then why don’t the folks who are opposed to us celebrating Christmas, why don’t they be quiet for a while because they are the ones that are using the court system of this country to force Christians to not be able to celebrate Christmas at Christmastime. I don’t understand it…I don’t get it, you know if you want to celebrate Ramadan, you celebrate Ramadan. The President of the United States of America has a Ramadan dinner with Muslims in the White House of the United States of America and celebrates Islam with those Muslims.
