Nativity Scene

Re "Santa Monica curbs displays at city park," June 14 As an American, I cherish and defend our right to freely express our beliefs, whatever they may be, and I expect my government to ensure that we are able to do so without censor. But to set aside public park space for the sole purpose of erecting displays of either religious or atheist themes is not only impractical but wrong. Perhaps those who strongly desire to view the Nativity scenes could instead find some lawn space from among the dozens of Santa Monica churches or thousands of Christian property owners.

Re "Threatened by faith," Opinion, Dec. 11 Although I am an atheist, I am not an angry one. Like Rabbi Michael Gotlieb, I do not feel threatened by the Nativity scenes that for nearly 60 years were put up in Santa Monica's Palisades Park. But if Gotlieb really thinks there should be Nativity scenes during the holiday season, why not erect some around his own Westside Congregation? If Gotlieb thinks this might be offensive to his congregation or regarded as an inappropriate expenditure of contributions, perhaps he can understand the reaction of residents who are atheists, Muslims, Hindus or others to Christian displays on public property.

A Claremont church's nativity display that showed gay couples holding hands was vandalized in an incident discovered Christmas Day that authorities are investigating as a hate crime. Claremont United Methodist Church has a Christmas tradition of unusual nativity scene installations that are intended to carry a social or political message. Despite some of the controversial topics, the installations had never been defaced, according to church officials and John Zachary, the artist who created them.

Christmas in Santa Monica has gotten a whole lot darker and a whole lot less tolerant. For almost 60 years Santa Monica's Palisades Park embodied the Christmas spirit with its displays depicting the birth of Jesus. Through the use of large dioramas, the Christmas story unfolded chronologically, based on the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. The life-size statues of baby Jesus, along with Mary, Joseph and others, added a visual reminder of our nation's religious underpinnings. The Nativity scenes were an impermanent acknowledgment of the timeless role faith and organized religion plays for the residents of Santa Monica and visitors alike.

About 200 Downey citizens, singing Christmas carols as they worked, set up a Christmas Nativity scene in a park behind Downey City Hall Saturday morning in response to a court order that the figures be removed from City Hall property. Msgr. John Young of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church said the group gathered at 9:30 a.m. to move the 20-piece Nativity scene from a City Hall storage area to the park.

An evenly divided Supreme Court deadlocked over a key church-and-state case Wednesday, thus affirming a ruling that requires a city in New York to allow a private group to place a Nativity scene in a public park during the Christmas season. The 4-4 vote was announced in a brief order saying that Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., who missed oral argument in the case while recuperating from prostate surgery, had not participated in the decision.

Four Colombian men were arrested after Spanish police made an unusual holiday haul--a 12-figure Nativity scene filled with 6.6 pounds of pressed cocaine worth $2 million. Police said Saturday that agents had discovered the drug inside the infant Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other Nativity figures. Agents followed a Colombian man suspected of being a major contact in drug-smuggling operations to Madrid's Barajas Airport on Thursday, police said.

A Superior Court judge has ruled that the placement of a Nativity scene near City Hall during the Christmas season violates a provision of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits government endorsement of religion. The decision reinforces, but does not expand, recent court rulings that found that the display of religious symbols such as creches and menorahs on public property associated with government is unconstitutional, said Carol Sobel, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. The Jan.

Don't bother wishing Dick Hogan a Merry Christmas. He considers it a holiday for the greedy, and he's hung a sign reading "Happy Winter Solstice, The REAL reason for the season" near a nativity scene outside the Parker County Courthouse. He got a permit for the sign as part of a settlement of a lawsuit he filed against the county challenging display of the religious scene on public property.

About 600 nativity scenes will be on view today and Sunday. The creches will be on display from noon to 9 p.m. today and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 1600 Erbes Road. The nativity scenes include 60 from Simi Valley collector Leila Jones, whose displays include a nativity scene so small it fits on the head of a pin, a creche made up of marionettes and one from Kyrgyzstan with the Mary figurine wearing a burka. The event is free.

Santa Monica's much-debated Nativity scenes will be staged after all - on private property. The decision was hailed by advocates for the separation of church and state, but there was little indication the acrimony would subside on the other side, where an attorney pledged to continue to fight for religious displays on public land. Less than a week after a federal judge finalized a ruling that Santa Monica has the right to ban seasonal displays in public spaces, Nativity scene organizers announced that they would move to a new location.

The city of Santa Monica can bar seasonal displays, including a Nativity scene that has appeared in Palisades Park for nearly 60 years, a federal judge ruled Monday. In a closely watched case that has attracted national attention, Judge Audrey B. Collins denied a request from the Santa Monica Nativity Scenes Committee to erect multiple large displays depicting the story of the birth of Jesus in the park overlooking the ocean. The coalition of churches has erected the displays every December since the 1950s.

Santa Monica may bar Nativity and other seasonal displays in public spaces, a federal judge tentatively ruled Monday. In a case that has drawn national attention, Judge Audrey B. Collins of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles denied a church coalition's request that the court require the city to allow Nativity scenes to be displayed in Palisades Park this year, as it has for nearly 60 years. "The atheists won on this," said William J. Becker Jr., an attorney for the Santa Monica Nativity Scenes Committee, a coalition of 13 churches and the Santa Monica Police Officers Assn.

Re "Santa Monica curbs displays at city park," June 14 As an American, I cherish and defend our right to freely express our beliefs, whatever they may be, and I expect my government to ensure that we are able to do so without censor. But to set aside public park space for the sole purpose of erecting displays of either religious or atheist themes is not only impractical but wrong. Perhaps those who strongly desire to view the Nativity scenes could instead find some lawn space from among the dozens of Santa Monica churches or thousands of Christian property owners.

Citing December's dust-up between atheists and Christian groups over seasonal religious dioramas, the Santa Monica City Council has agreed to bar private, unattended displays in Palisades Park. After hearing emotional testimony from about 30 people, the panel voted 5 to 0 Tuesday night to eliminate an exception that had allowed churches, synagogues, atheists and others to erect displays at the public park and leave them unattended. Some council members said that, although they personally enjoyed seeing the displays, they wanted to head off increasingly rancorous confrontations over freedom of speech and religion that would cost the city time and money.

The Catholic League , the media-savvy conservative group that combats anti-Catholicism real and imagined , recently took after the Los Angeles Times for an editorial supporting Georgetown University's speaking invitation to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The league's Bill Donohue sicced his followers on Editorial Page Editor Nick Goldberg, filling his inbox with complaints of varying lucidity, including one that advised him to “go back to your Jewish roots and have some manners.” But The Times isn't the league's only current target.

Vandals used blue paint to deface life-size figures of the Nativity scene at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park early Friday. A park worker discovered the marred figures and graffiti about 7:30 Friday morning, said Steve Tiplitsky, a San Diego police officer. Blue paint was sprayed on each figure of the 40-piece creche, including animals, angels, and wise men. The figures are housed in eight green sheds, each representing a scene from the biblical birth story.

A sharply divided federal appeals court Wednesday upheld San Diego's right to permit a private group to display a life-size Nativity scene in a public park during the Christmas season. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the display was legal because it was placed in a section of Balboa Park that is a traditional public forum and because other groups are allowed to use the area while the display is in place.

A Claremont church's nativity display that showed gay couples holding hands was vandalized in an incident discovered Christmas Day that authorities are investigating as a hate crime. Claremont United Methodist Church has a Christmas tradition of unusual nativity scene installations that are intended to carry a social or political message. Despite some of the controversial topics, the installations had never been defaced, according to church officials and John Zachary, the artist who created them.

In a sunny park overlooking the beach in Santa Monica, where a cool breeze blows in from the Pacific, the so-called war over Christmas has found its latest battlefield. Over almost six decades, a collection of Santa Monica's Christian churches have re-created the sprawling, life-sized Nativity scenes of Jesus Christ's birth. But this year, there's no room in the park. PHOTOS: Battle over Christmas displays Atheist groups objected to churches' use of the public Palisades Park to espouse a religious message and applied to the city of Santa Monica for their own spaces.