The Luzerne County Cour­t­house elves dec­o­rated the lawn with a Nativ­ity as they have for gen­er­a­tions and a Meno­rah, as they have for the past 10 years.

Then a local uni­ver­sity stu­dent called the ACLU to report that of all the reli­gions only 2 ever have rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the County. The ACLU offered the County an oppor­tu­nity to remove the reli­gious sym­bols from the lawn before it filed court action that was already in the works. The County (in the throes of a ginor­mous cor­rup­tion scan­dal and bud­get cri­sis) decided it wasn’t a bat­tle they were will­ing to fight and put the dec­o­ra­tions back in storage.

The County Com­mis­sioner Chair­woman Maryanne Petrilla said she expected peo­ple would be upset, “We can all express our faith pri­vately when we’re in our homes.”

Val­ley­ists are plan­ning a protest and many plan to dress like Nativ­ity fig­ures. Local attor­neys are work­ing with the ACLU to come up with an accept­able solu­tion and it is expected a mod­i­fied lawn scene will be back up Mon­day afternoon.

Why am I writ­ing about this?

I read the com­ments in the online edi­tion of the Times Leader and was appalled at many of them. They made me under­stand why there is a cor­po­rate dance around the word Christ­mas and other reli­gious hol­i­days and why we have resorted to say­ing “Happy Hol­i­days” and hav­ing hol­i­day par­ties and end of year cel­e­bra­tions. It’s eas­ier not to deal with it in the workplace.

Cel­e­brate all or noth­ing or risk offend­ing someone.

Con­fused

“hey how about the jew­ish wear­ing those yumaka’s? i bet­ter go call the ACLU!!!”

Con­sti­tu­tional Aficionado

“Some­one tell me exactly where that the “seper­a­tion of church and state” is actu­ally writ­ten. You cant find it because .…IT AINT #@!$* THERE!!!!!!”

Con­spir­acy Theorist

“Merry Christ­mas ACLU, shouldn’t you guys be busy free­ing ter­ror­ists? ACLU = Al-Qaida.”

Apoc­olyp­tist

“what a shame. it’s the begin­ning of armaged­don. the devil takes on many forms. this time it’s the ACLU”

Numis­ma­tist

“You have got to be kid­ding me! Seper­a­tion of church and state? I bet the ACLU have no prob­lem using money that reads “In God We Trust”! This coun­try was founded on the belief in God. And now, after every­thing that has hap­pened in this county.…there are morals and val­ues? Enough already…”

Philoso­pher

“How would every­one like it if the Mus­lims had their dec­o­ra­tions on pub­lic prop­erty? I bet it would be very different.”

McCarthy­ist

“This is fast becom­ing a Com­mu­nist Coun­try. Peo­ple need to defend their Faith as much as pos­si­ble to stop these things from hap­pen­ing. There are many such sto­ries all over the USA with Chris­tian­ity being out­lawed. Scary.”

Antitheocratist

“Put the reli­gious sym­bols on your own prop­erty, church prop­erty, and synagouge prop­erty; Not PUBLIC prop­erty. Your religous sym­bols DO NOT rep­re­sent me, and I pay taxes as well. You are free to express your­self, why should you do so on the pub­lic dime. This isn’t a theoc­racy as many of you who com­mented would like it to be.”

Prag­ma­tist

“thank­fully this is being addressed. no gov­ern­ment entity should be dis­play­ing any hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions. these should be left to be on dis­play at pri­vate res­i­dences and places of wor­ship. our gov­ern­ment should get out of the dec­o­rat­ing busi­ness and focus on govt issues only.”

Mod­ernist

“I love to hear from those peo­ple who believe in a god say “our coun­try was founded on these beliefs and tra­di­tions, we need to go back to those good old val­ues.” Our found­ing fathers also did not have indoor toi­lets, elec­tric­ity, the inter­net, women were not allowed to vote and black peo­ple were slaves. It’s 2009 folks — these prim­i­tive super­sti­tions sim­ply don’t have the power they once did. Get over it. There are plenty of places for you to to dis­play your plas­tic Jesus. Reli­gion is the biggest cat­a­stro­phe ever unleashed on mankind, the cause of so much of the world’s vio­lent his­tory. I would guess the TL prob­a­bly won’t post this com­ment because that would offend the major­ity of read­ers, and they don’t need a boy­cott right now.”

Lit­er­al­ist

“Thou shalt not make unto thy self any graven image, thou shalt not bow down and wor­ship them” These Nativ­ity scenes are noth­ing more than empty idols and are dis­pleas­ing to God; go read your Bible’s or at least be con­sis­tent in your think­ing. Any statue of Jesus/Mary/Saints are an abom­i­na­tion and should be destroyed. I am so glad to see this idol removed from pub­lic sight, God must be smil­ing down from HIS heavens.”

Abol­is­hon­ist

“The igno­rance of the Val­ley chris­tians is APALLING. Lis­ten to yourselves…you are the ter­ror­ists now. If you want to adver­tise for jesus, do it on your own lawn (pri­vate prop­erty). This coun­try is founded on the free­doms of ALL peo­ple, not just you chris­tians. I’d like to be FREE of your igno­rance about the law and the rights of oth­ers and espe­cially FREE of your oppres­sive reli­gious, myth­i­cal and make-believe sym­bols on tax payer prop­erty. “Con­gress shall make no law respect­ing an estab­lish­ment of religion”…sound famil­iar? IT SHOULD. It’s the LAW.”

If the County HR Man­ager hadn’t resigned a few weeks ago in the face of an indict­ment for cor­rup­tion I won­der what he would have advised.