On California coast, atheists nudge out Nativity scenes

[FBM]

I'm glad to see this, but I acknowledge that it may be taking some of the "magic" out of the holiday for some of the young'uns. I don't think they need that kind of magic, anyway, really. Can anybody see a real downside to this?

On California coast, atheists nudge out Nativity scenes

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Every Christmas for the past 60 years, Nativity scenes have dominated two blocks of a park on bluffs overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica, California.

The 14 scenes depicting Jesus Christ's birth have long been a popular attraction among area residents and tourists to the southern California city.

This year, however, atheists have taken over most of the two-block stretch, nearly shutting out and angering a group of churches who contend the atheists have organized against the Christians and gamed a city lottery process allocating the holiday exhibit space.

In response, a leader of the atheist group says he's just looking for evenhanded treatment to present his beliefs in a public space -- and goes so far as to say that the city shouldn't even be allowing any religious or even atheist expression in the park.

That's why he and his group have put nothing on half of the park exhibit spaces that they've secured from the city this year.

The atheists are declaring the politically left-leaning seaside town of Santa Monica as their latest battleground in a national movement to assert their rights.

"I'm part of a growing movement in America of atheists standing up for their rights. It's a very exciting time for us that we're having more of an impact in our society," said Damon Vix, the organizer of the atheist group.

"I'm a civil rights activist, and atheists have been discriminated against for as long as I've been an atheist -- since high school," added Vix, 43, a freelance prop maker who lives in Burbank, California.

But Hunter Jameson, the Nativity scene committee chairman representing 14 Santa Monica groups that are mostly churches, said the church members are now planning to petition the city in 2012 to change the process so that creches would be better represented on the park bluffs adjacent to downtown Santa Monica.

"There's a very militant atheist movement that's trying to drive out vestiges of the truth. They're trying to deny the truth that this nation is founded on Christian principles," Jameson said.

"These people, atheists, a number of them, like Mr. Vix, are bound and determined to drive away from any public place any manifestation that Americans are God-loving people," Jameson added. "This is not fair, this is not just."

The atheists group won from the city 18 of the 21 exhibit spaces -- leaving only two plots to the Christian churches and one to a rabbi erecting a Menorah scene. The venue is Palisades Park, with vistas of the Santa Monica Pier and, in the distance, the coastal mountains of Malibu.

"We don't object to them being there. We just object to them manipulating the rules, to try to deprive us of our freedom of speech," Jameson said. "You add everything together, there would be enough room in the two blocks to take care of all the displays. It's a matter of portioning the space fairly, and we are undertaking a petition drive."

Caught in the middle of the dispute are city officials, who say the lottery process is governed under federal law, and there's nothing they can do about this year's results.

What enabled the atheists to garner the vast majority of the park's exhibit space is they loaded up the applicant pool by constituting 11 of the 13 applications, according to the atheist group The other applicants were for the Menorah scene and the Nativity scene.

Vix and 10 Los Angeles area friends he recruited make up the 11-member alliance, though three of them aren't atheist but agreed to join because they don't agree with the city's policy of supporting religious displays, Vix said.

When names were drawn, one of the atheists' names came up first, and he claimed a maximum nine exhibit spaces, followed by the rabbi who asked for one, and then another atheist who secured nine more, city officials said.

When Jameson's name came, only two spaces were left, and he took both of them, city officials said.

"The first thing to make clear is that the whole process is governed by federal law that has designated public parks as public forums. In these public forums, individuals have maximum protection," said Barbara Stinchfield, Santa Monica's director of community and cultural services.

"In the past we've been able to accommodate everyone who has applied. This year, instead of the three requests, we've had (13) requests, whose total request for spaces exceeded the spaces we've had. So we had to develop a system to allocate the space that wasn't governed by the content of the display because the First Amendment protects them," she said.

"We literally pulled names out of a basket and started assigning spaces until all the spaces were allocated," Stinchfield said.

The church groups are using their two spots to display three creches.

"We didn't evaluate the content of displays in making the decision of who got the spaces," Stinchfield said.

Jameson, the Nativity scene committee chairman, said the church groups are upset that the atheists don't live in Santa Monica, though Vix said he has worked there and that he and his friends visit and shop there. Jameson doesn't live in Santa Monica either, but he attends church there, he said.

"The gist of it is that out-of-town atheists are attempting to hijack the nearly 60-year-old Santa Monica Nativity scenes Christmas celebration," Jameson said.

"There is not a whole lot we can really do about it" this year, Jameson added. "We're not trying to get rid of anybody. If we had all our displays up there, they would take a block, and one block would be left over. We just think that a local display deserves some preference in a local park. We're not saying ban them (the atheists). We're just saying there should be preference given to our local and historic display - the Nativity scenes."

Dix, who consulted with the American Atheists and the Freedom from Religion Foundation in preparing his group's applications, has left nine of the 18 exhibit spaces blank, he said.

On the remaining parcels, Dix and his friends have installed 18-inch-by-24-inch signs that include quotes from the Founding Fathers and U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state, he said.

One sign was caged within a chain link fence -- for protection from vandals, Dix says -- it states: "Religions are all alike -- founded upon fables and mythologies."

The sign attributes the quote to Thomas Jefferson, but Dix said he couldn't verify whether Jefferson actually made that statement.

Stated Dix: "I know it's close to what he believed, and it's probably taken a little bit out of context at most."

Another display features a Freedom from Religion Foundation banner that begins: "At this season of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world," according to Dix.

That banner is the second one installed this month; the first one was vandalized, Dix said.

[Bella Fortuna]

Yeah, there was a story done on it on the local news and they didn't talk to anyone from the atheist group, yet had extensive griping by the religious side, and showed the nativity scenes over and over but only glimpsed one of the the atheist set-ups for about two seconds.

[FBM]

There's tradition and then there's traditional stupidity.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yeah, there was a story done on it on the local news and they didn't talk to anyone from the atheist group, yet had extensive griping by the religious side, and showed the nativity scenes over and over but only glimpsed one of the the atheist set-ups for about two seconds.

We have several threads running on this over at JREF. The accommodationists are chewing the carpet about "playing nice", which basically means "sit quietly at the back of the bus like good _____s."

[Tero]

Pictures?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

A Fox News report on that sign in Michigan.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/ta ... 0111218-dk

[FBM]

A Fox News report on that sign in Michigan.
<link to naked flight attendant from another thread removed The Management>

I don't think that's the link, dood...

[Bella Fortuna]

Take out the link or I will, please!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yeah, I hate it when that happens.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/ta ... 0111218-dk

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Take out the link or I will, please!

"You can't fix stupid."

[Bella Fortuna]

Take out the link or I will, please!

"You can't fix stupid."

Perhaps not, but you can beat the shit out of it.

[FBM]

Take out the link or I will, please!

"You can't fix stupid."

Perhaps not, but you can beat the shit out of it.

Y'all got 50-meter sticks over there?

[Hermit]

...and generally speaking, The War on Christmas is real, and the atheist barbarians are winning it.

Incredibly, a bunch of atheists won and were permitted to put up images of Satan, Jesus and Father Christmas, with the tagline: “37 million Americans know a myth when they see one… What myths do you see?”

Yes, that's incredible! This just should not be allowed! Nobody should be permitted to even suggest that Satan, Jesus and Father Christmas are mythical beings! What we need, is a law that forbids all but devoutly Christian displays!

Bring back The Inquisition, I say! Let theocracy rule once again, and repair everything the atheistical crowd has wrecked!

[Seth]

Well, I see a problem with a lottery that selects a name and then allocates more than one space to that name. The city can't discriminate as to the message each applicant chooses to present, but it can certainly make sure that it's only one to a customer. This doesn't prevent groups from submitting many individual applications, but the simple way to prevent "pooling" is to also randomly select which spots go to which name, so that no one group can deliberately put together a bloc.

Next year I'm pretty certain there will be dozens of Christians vying with the Atheists for spots, and a fair lottery would determine how many spaces were available and then pick that many names at random.

And that will be fine with me. I don't mind Atheists presenting their views, but I do mind them shutting out other people's views by demanding removal of a display just because nobody else bothered to ask for space, as in the case of the Texas town. Or right here in my little town, where there's a Nativity scene but nothing else...because nobody else cares to apply to put anything up.

[Seth]

Yeah, there was a story done on it on the local news and they didn't talk to anyone from the atheist group, yet had extensive griping by the religious side, and showed the nativity scenes over and over but only glimpsed one of the the atheist set-ups for about two seconds.

We have several threads running on this over at JREF. The accommodationists are chewing the carpet about "playing nice", which basically means "sit quietly at the back of the bus like good _____s."

Meh. The news covers the news, and it panders to the majority because that's who support their advertisers. Why would the news bother to highlight a bunch of Atheist cranks when doing so would piss off the vast majority of it's viewers?

The Press is under no obligation whatsoever to give "equal time" to Atheists. Indeed, knowing which side of the bread their butter is, and wishing to avoid a boycott by the religious majority, it would not surprise me, or bother me, at all if the news completely ignored the Atheists or openly called them cranks...because they are.

Atheist cranks may have the law on their side, but they don't necessarily have public opinion on their side, and they may be doing themselves far more harm than good by being militant Atheist activists. I suspect all it's going to get them is more marginalized and despised by the majority.

Hoist on their own petard, I'd say.