Driven by the urgent need to erect a religious display on public property—after all, it’s just not Christmas unless you annex the county courthouse lawn—the all-Republican cast on the new Loudoun Board of Supervisors cannily hatched up the idea of having a government committee design, erect, and own whatever highly tasteful display is eventually deployed on government property in downtown Leesburg this year.
Of course, I haven’t exactly noticed a shortage of holiday displays on private homes, churches, shops, restuarants, and other private property around town during the Christmas season, and you might think the simplest solution that respects all citizens would be to leave the courts to the business of . . . oh I don’t know, how about administering justice impartially? . . . and leave the business of religious-themed displays to non-governmental entities and individuals.
Would you let this man design your holiday display?
But a proposed policy to do just that a couple of years ago led to howls of outrage from those who insisted that this was a nefarious assault in disguise, part of the larger “war on Christmas,” and demanded that the “traditional” creche featuring extremely tasteful colored plastic images of the Holy Family be permitted to occupy public property. The little matter of the Constitution however does just require that if you let one group erect a display on public property you don’t get to choose which one, based on religion. Thus the humorous (to some) vulgar (to others) and undeniably chaotic spectacle of recent years on the courthouse lawn in which the highly tasteful creche rubbed shoulders with atheist quotations and the Flying Spaghetti Monster among others.
Having a government committee design a single authorized display might get around the constitutional problem but is virtually guaranteed to generate its own ridiculous outcome, a mere taste of which was provided the other day by none other than our he’s-everywhere-new-supervisor “Ken” Reid (R-Leesburg). Continue reading
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