State of Ohio – Liberty Counsel is involved in combating myths that have been spreading like wildfire across the country regarding the constitutionality of displaying nativity scenes at Christmas. Recent activity has centered in the state of Ohio, where the controversy involves displays outside government buildings and in public parks. Whenever Liberty Counsel learns about controversies over public holiday displays, it provides explanatory letters and detailed legal memoranda to government officials and offers to defend the officials at no cost against a legal challenge for following Liberty Counsel’s advice.

Whitehall City Hall: Liberty Counsel has provided a letter and detailed legal memorandum to Whitehall, informing the mayor that the city need not remove the display that contains the Nativity scene. An anti-Christian organization, known as The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), complained to the city of Whitehall for displaying a Nativity scene in front of City Hall. The Nativity is part of a display that contains a Christmas tree and lighted reindeer. The Nativity scene has been a time-honored tradition that has been displayed in the city for three decades.

Myths about the constitutionality of Nativity scenes are perpetuated every year by groups like FFRF. Ruth Colker, a law professor at Ohio State University, is quoted in the Columbus Dispatch as claiming that Whitehall must add symbols of non-Christian religions such as a Buddha. Colker is wrong. Adding non-Christian religious items that are unrelated to Christmas to a Christmas display turns the display into a display about religion instead of a holiday display. The precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court is that Nativity scenes can be displayed with secular symbols, such as a reindeer and a Christmas tree.

Ohio State Parks: The Ohio Department of Natural Resources recently ordered all of Ohio’s state parks to remove any Nativity scenes, citing a complaint about the Nativity scene at Shawnee State Park in Portsmouth. The person who complained said the lodge needed to include symbols of the Zoroastrian and Hindu faiths. The complaint has no legal basis.

Liberty Counsel sent a letter to ODNR, along with our Legal Memorandum on the constitutionality of displaying religious symbols during the December holiday celebrations. State parks can display a Nativity scene along with other secular symbols. As long as secular symbols of Christmas are displayed with a Nativity scene, there are no legal grounds to have the Nativity removed.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented, “One wonders on what planet those who take extreme lengths to eliminate Christmas actually live. To suggest that a Nativity display is only constitutional if Buddha sits on a rock nearby is absurd. The national and state holiday called Christmas is not a World Religions Day. It’s Christmas Day. Christmas is constitutional.”