Our poor friends the persecuted Christians are up in arms all over the country, battling to keep Nativity scenes on public property. Bless their hearts.
They've taken a very simple concept - that governments can't endorse any particular religion - and turned it on its ear. All they have to say is that part of their particular religion involves being free to share their message in public places, and that if they are prevented from doing that then they do not have the freedom of religion guaranteed in our Constitution.
It's kind of brilliant in its simplicity. Say that your religion requires you to pray in school, or see a statue of the Ten Commandments in your courthouse, or see a Nativity on the courthouse lawn, then the rest of us have to let you do it, right, or you are being denied the right to practice your religion?
Bullshit. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I should say that if your religion does, indeed, require you to share it in public places, then yes, I am proposing that we deny you the right to exercise that particular belief. Is that shocking? I also deny you permission to fly planes into buildings full of innocent people. You can't just get carte blanche permission to do whatever the hell you want because it's your religion. We all have to live together.
So the atheists are usually the bad guys in these courthouse Nativity battles, but a town in Connecticut solved their problem very simply, in a way that both allows Christians to see the Nativity when downtown and keeps religion off public spaces:
Creche Clash Averted
They simply moved the Nativity to the lawn of The First United Methodist Church. Now they can accompany the Nativity with hymns, Bible readings, prayers, whatever they want.
See how easy that was?
