Public input session – Tuesday, September 7, 7:00 pm
1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg.
You can call in advance to sign up at 703.777.0204 or 703.771.5072.
The folks who insist that the First Amendment allows them to display “traditional” religious symbols on the courthouse lawn are planning a repeat of the heated public input session of last holiday season. So, I suppose, are the equally insistent anti-display advocates, who have already snapped up at least three of the ten currently permitted display sites.
I think the inclination among progressive people is to not give too much attention to stunts and manufactured controversies like this. It doesn’t seem like something that should be taken seriously. There comes a point, though, at which our silence is perceived as consent. A situation in which book burnings and violence occur has reached that point, and our local controversy is developing in the context of such a national climate. A local blogger has been maintaining an online petition demanding that our government exclusively “Keep Christmas in Leesburg,” and here are a couple of the more disturbing comments that accompany the signatures:
I do not like the smell of curry therefor if we are unable to have a Christmas Tree and a Nativity Scene then get rid of your curry!
Freedom of religion is a right of every citizen this is not the middle east. If a nativity scene or christmas tree offends you, go home.
Notice how the facts don’t matter, as if people of other faiths and cultures are the ones responsible for the issue being on the agenda. This is a poisonous atmosphere, and it’s being encouraged by those politicians who do better at the polls when their constituencies are motivated by fear and loathing of the “other.”I suspect that a lot of people in Loudoun and elsewhere just feel a bit resentful of things not continuing to be “the way they’ve always been,” and it seems reasonable to them that as the majority religious tradition they should be able to have that. Add some well-placed demagoguery to that sentiment, and you can get a range of things, from a white suburban Christian mom claiming to know from the courthouse issue “what religious persecution feels like” (trust me, Ma’am, you don’t) to a book burning fueled by anti-Muslim bigotry, to violence. I have to call attention to this comical bit of pretense, though, buried in an angry post promising to “ferret out” those Loudoun County supervisors who don’t bend to the will of “the majority” on the courthouse issue.
Perhaps things could have rested if after we prevailed last year, our self-important Board of Supervisors had let it rest.
This is really a striking display of either ignorance or outright lying on the part of this blogger, the same one mentioned above. If she valued facts over fabrication she would know that the supervisor who demanded that the holiday display policy be amended to require that the Board regularly revisit the policy, and the supervisor generating most of the false ‘war on Christmas’ propaganda are one and the same person. After all, one can’t put on a very dramatic ‘war on Christmas’ performance without media interest and without an enemy to engage. It had to be arranged, and it was.
If reasonable people show up and say what needs to be said, the media will be able to report something like this: A group of residents largely organized by one of their colleagues called the Board of Supervisors anti-Christian tyrants, and threatened them with defeat in 2011 if they “vote against Christmas.” Other speakers said that they see claims of bias against Christians as a nonissue, since all religions must be treated equally under the policy. They pointed to evidence that those claiming to be victims of anti-Christian discrimination don’t want minority viewpoints represented, and dismissed the “war on Christmas” narrative as a political stunt.
Although the judges’ recommendation makes a good case for excluding the courthouse grounds as a site, whether the board should vote to allow all displays or none on county property is a matter on which people can reasonably disagree. What our supervisors really need to hear from us, regardless of our opinions about the display policy, is that we want them to make it clear that one group is not entitled to special rights or special treatment by virtue of being “the majority.” That’s not what our Constitution is for.
Related posts:
Solving the holiday display impasse
‘Tis the season for cheap political grandstanding
Debates, Distractions and Religious Freedom