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Virginia AG Gives Guidance On Holiday Displays

By Howard M. Friedman

Virginia's Attorney General last week, at the request of Loudon County officials, issued an official advisory opinion (Opinion 10-067) on permissible holiday displays. The opinion concludes that the state constitution's establishment clause is narrower than the federal one and does not limit holiday displays on public property, though it does prohibit favoritism toward a particular sect or denomination.  Moving to the requirements of the federal establishment clause, the opinion gives the following guidance:

Loudoun County must accommodate religious items within the personal space of employees under certain circumstances. In addition, where the County already has provided a public forum or limited public forum, it will usually lack the right to exclude a religious display of reasonable duration based solely upon content. Even where no such forum previously has been created, the County is free to create a nondiscriminatory forum for recognition of holidays, including Christmas, if it makes clear that the County itself is not communicating a religious message.

Moreover, irrespective of religious accommodation, the County is free to communicate its own recognition of holidays, including Christmas, as long as overtly Christian symbols are balanced with other religious and secular ones in a way that communicates to reasonable, informed observers that the County is not making a religious statement. Because secular symbols can insulate innately religious symbols from constitutional attack, decoration of public buildings with such secular items as lights, candy canes, wreaths, poinsettias, fir trees, snowflakes, and red and green ribbons should raise no serious constitutional objection.

Today's Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on the opinion.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on August 25, 2010 (boomark / email).