Posted by
Jay Noble on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 4:43:52 PM
Christmas trees are going back up in the Seattle/Tacoma Airport. The commission responsibile for operating the airport had removed the trees under threat of a federal lawsuit from a Jewish rabbi, who complained that no menorah was displayed. During the few days the trees were absent the rabbi denied that his objective was to force removal of the Christmas trees. An attack of common sense apparently occurred and the commission voted to return the trees.
The whole affair is a minor example of the confusion caused by wrongheaded Federal court decisions on religion/state issues intermixing with the secular faith of multiculturalism, with its prime tenet, political correctness. In a more sane time, no one contemplated for a moment that Christmas trees on public property posed any constitutional issue. However, over the last 50 years a succession of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court have thoroughly mangled the interpretation of the establishment of the First Amendment to the extent that now most public officials and bodies take the safe course of stripping any contact with or mention of religion in a public activity. The court decision's have empowered the malcontent, effectively giving him a veto over the government giving anything more than the most passing and petty nod to the religious feelings of the majority of the populace. Combined with the hypersensitivity of public officials these days to any perceived slight of a minority of any type, the inevitable result is to slight and denigrate the majority faith. Perversely, polictical correctness, touted an the expression of "tolerance," in fact tolerates only those opinions and faiths which do not command majority allegiance, and suppresses the opinions and faith of the majority.
None of this would matter but for the malpractice in this area by the U.S. Supreme Court, with its nonsense that the First Amendment commands a "wall of separation" between church and states. No matter how many times they say it, it doesn't make it so. Noting in the language of the First Amendment , the views of the drafter or of the members of the ratifying Congress and states legislatures, or the tradition and practice of the American government and people for the first 170 years of our history supports the view that the First Amendment requires a wall of separation between religion and state. When the Court makes a decision which is untethered from the text and history of the Constitution then that decision is illegitimate and the other branches of government nor the public should defer to or respect the decision. The time is long, long past for the Court to be put in its proper place in the Constitutional order and if doing so requires outright defiance, so be it.
In the meantime, I'm happy the Christmas trees are returning to the Seattle airport. The trees should be joined by a nativity scene with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, along with a banners stating, "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men," and "Jesus in the Reason for the Season." If some malcontent is going to object to Christmas trees, why not give him something to really get worked up over.