Whether or not protesters were coming, support was bustling.
Hundreds of people from all over the area filled the street in front of Ellwood City’s Municipal Building to support a Nativity scene that was erected early Friday morning on the front lawn of the borough building.
Hundreds of people listen to several officials speak on the Nativity issue
And, although no protesters were evident, full support of the religious display was clearly evident – in fact, police shut down the entire 500 block of Lawrence Avenue after people flooded the surrounding area.
“I’m overwhelmed,” said Ellwood City Mayor Anthony Court. “This, all of this, is about Ellwood City, and as long as we all stay together, this nativity scene will be here forever.”
The mayor, along with several other local officials had a few words to say on the front steps of the Municipal Building.
Crowds of people amassed around the Nativity scene in anticipation of a protest by the Freedom From Religion Foundation out of Madison, Wisc. Several sources claimed that the group was sending members to protest the religious display on borough grounds Friday morning.
All the supporting activity stems from a letter to borough officials back in 2010 saying that the Ellwood City tradition of displaying a Nativity scene on borough property violates the First Amendment clause (Establishment Clause) of the “separation of church and state.”
Yet, with “heat” from the Foundation again this year, Borough Manager Dom Viccari said Ellwood City will once again be setting up the Nativity. He, along with other officials, said that they won’t stray from this tradition.
“First of all, Merry Christmas,” said Pa. State Rep. Jaret Gibbons, who also spoke to the crowd Friday morning. “This is our town and our tradition — way to stand up against outside people trying to tell us what to do.”
Possibly, though, the reason the Foundation did not send protesters was because of several additional items positioned next to the religious display. To the left of the Nativity are a Kwanzaa sign, Santa Claus and reindeer, and a Christmas tree.
Why would these additional items deter the protesters?
With the addition of secular items, Ellwood City in the clear of any legal actions, mainly due to a 1984 Supreme Court case of Lynch v. Donnelly.
In this case, a small town in Rhode Island had a Christmas display consisting of secular items in addition to their Nativity scene. The District Court of Rhode Island said that the display, namely the Nativity, was in violation of the Establishment Clause – yet, the Supreme Court had another take on the issue.
In a vote of 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled that the display as a whole was not an effort to advocate a particular religious message and had “legitimate secular purposes.”
So, no bus loads of protesters made their way into Ellwood City Friday morning, but car loads of supporters, media cameras and helicopters, and plenty of wooden crosses were ready for anything or anyone.
But the main outcome this morning, at least according to the hundreds of supporters who braved the chilling air, is that the Nativity scene has been untouched and the tradition lives on in the small town of Ellwood City.
To cover all bases you should also include a Mennorah and a Koran so that no single person can complain.
Congratulations for standing up against these troublemakers. If we let them get their way all the time, there will be no religion left in our country.
This would be a good thing.
This is the most impressive thing that nobody cares about. Get off the street. Go to work. Who cares about christmas decorations this much? People just want to fight about something. All those people came to see a fight, not support a fake nativity scene. Who cares if people from Wisconsin don’t want it? Also, how naive are you to believe that anyone outside of Lawrence and Beaver counties even knows what or where Ellwood City is? Come on. You think too much of yourselves. Seriously, just go back to work, raise your families, do all the stuff that normal people do. All you want is to say that you won. That you have to be christians to celebrate christmas. Okay. You win. You’re better than everyone. And, because you all showed up to defend this all of the non-christians will not celebrate the holiday now.
I DO NOT CARE IF THIS DOES OFFEND SOMEONE… AND IF IT DOES, DELETE ME PLEASE
THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE…I AM SICK AND TIRED OF EVERY YEAR WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES AROUND; THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TAKE CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS BECAUSE IT MIGHT OFFEND SOMEONE…WELL, HOW ABOUT ALL OF THE CHRISTIANS?…WHAT ABOUT OFFENDING US BECAUSE YOU ARE TAKING OUR CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS?…CHRIST IS CHRISTMAS!…IF …YOU AREN’T CELEBRATING CHRIST THEN WHY ARE YOU CELEBRATING?…CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOR!…CHRISTMAS IS ONE OF A FEW HOLIDAYS LEFT THAT CELEBRATE “MY” CHRIST!…LEAVE “MY” HOLIDAY ALONE!…AND TELL EVERYONE MERRY CHRISTMAS, NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!…
Aren’t these anti-religion things really anti-Christian? If one of the other forms of religion decided to put something up I imagine that there would not be this huge hue and cry. We need Elijah to come deal with the prophets of Baal here.
I am so please to see the Mayor and Representative Gibbons take a stand for right. Go read FFRF’s demanding letter on their website. Read the letter which tells them where they EXPECT their banner to be hung. They wanted it hung over or under the nativity scene–Who do these people think they are? Just imagine this–children looking at a nativity scene and then look up and see “there are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell”. They people want to be noticed; they want to be in the news. Look at their website FFRF IN THE NEWS! They want to be in the spotlight just look at their happy and proud faces smiling over the banner that they was going to send. I wonder if they are still smiling. Well they are in the news now allright. I think the city should hang up a BANNER with our National Motto “In God We Trust”. That does go with the nativity scene.
God Bless Your City people for taking the RIGHT stand. Who do these bullies think they are. If you don’t do what we want we are going to sue you? Read their letter–they were happy to leave the nativity scene as long as they could put their banner there too. It is not about seperation of church and state at all–or they would have fought for what they believed in. They wouldn’t have wanted to degrade, devalue and blaspheme the Name of Almighty God especially here at Christmas time. Instead, they wanted to make a MOCKERY out of Christmas and Almighty God. Keep the letter from FFRF Mayor–take that to court.
Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.