By BILL CHAISSON
The creche has appeared for the holiday season on the Broad Street Common in Claremont, and the letters have started to come in. Apparently there was an exchange of letters on the topic through the month of December 2017 and into January of this year. We don’t have archive paper copies of most of those issues, so I am only able to read the first couple of paragraphs that are available as teasers in our digital archive service (ain’t the 21st century grand). The gist of the back and forth seems to come down to “this is the way we’ve always done it” — a very familiar refrain in Claremont — on one side, and on the other side are those insisting on a strict separation of church and state.
The so-called “Establishment Clause” is in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” To this day all the nations of western Europe, including our former colonial power, the United Kingdom, have established churches that are part of the state apparatus. All the citizens are taxed by the state and the money goes to support the state church. This is the dynamic that the Founders decided to abjure, and the Establishment Clause is across-the-board accepted as meaning that the state may not show support for any particular church or faith.
In fact there is Supreme Court decision that weighs in specifically on the creche/nativity scene-on-public property situation. In 1989 Allegheny v. ACLU considered two displays in Pittsburgh. One was a creche on the stairs of the county courthouse, and the other was a menorah, a Christmas tree, and sign that endorsed Liberty. In short, the creche was found to be impermissible and the trio of symbols outside another government building was permitted.
The Pittsburgh creche was not allowed because it stood alone and in a very prominent and beautiful part of the courthouse. While the Claremont creche is certainly in a prominent position in the center of the city in the shadow of city hall, it is accompanied by a 6-foot menorah, which stands about 30 feet away from the creche towards city hall. This might or might not fend off a legal challenge to the legitimacy of the creche display.
There seems to be a presumption that Claremont is a “Christian community.” However, that is not how the population declares itself to the government. In 2010, 6,008 residents declared themselves to be Catholic. It is the largest single denomination in the city. The number has declined from 8,339 in 2000. The “mainline” Protestant church populations has declined from 4,146 to 3,118. All told, only 23.3 percent of the population claimed to be an adherent of any faith at all. (You can find this information at city-data.com, with references.) For comparison, I looked at the place where I attended middle and high school, Beacon, New York, another former factory town of 12,000 people. Surprisingly, while over 76 percent of Claremonters declare themselves to be unaffiliated with any church, that is true of only 46.5 percent of Beaconites. There is that good old Yankee independence for you.
What seems odd to me is that there are two churches across Broad Street from the Common and all controversy would be avoided by receiving permission from either of them* to put the creche on their front lawns, which would be an equally prominent location and unquestionably legal. In addition, there are private clubs and businesses along Broad Street that could be approached. Erecting a creche tableau on private property is entirely acceptable in the eyes of the law.
When you get right up to the figures and peer at them through the thick protective plexiglas, they are actually quite pretty, and there is plaque affixed to the right wall that lists the local businesses that donated materials and talent to create the nativity group. Which is to say, this is a display of love and devotion, obviously to the Christ story, but also to the community of Claremont. For this reason it seems a shame that it should a focus of argument each holiday season, especially when alternative locations are readily available.
The First Amendment is also, of course, the shrine to freedom of speech, so expecting people to just keep quiet about something that irritates their sense of right and wrong isn’t really in the spirit of our democracy. Nor is it particularly in the spirit of American democracy to pretend on a local scale that we are miniature European state with an established church. The demographic numbers just don’t bear that out anyway.
Rather than simply complaining about the creche, it would be more constructive for those opposed to its presence on public property to propose alternatives that would be acceptable to everyone (or most people anyway;we’re a democracy not a commune). The proposals should be made in a civil fashion to the appropriate authority, namely the city government.
Bill Chaisson is the editor of the Eagle Times and he does not celebrate Christmas.
*I have since been told that one of the churches is inactive and the property is owned by the city, so that wouldn’t work.
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