RELIGIOUS DISPLAYS Menorah and Christmas tree spark courthouse controversy

Debate rages on the line between holiday display and religious symbol.
SACRAMENTO BEE
SACRAMENTO Calif. -- The day after Thanksgiving, as tradition dictates, a Christmas tree was erected in the rotunda of the federal courthouse in Sacramento accompanied by a background of piped-in carols and garlands of evergreens draped around the guards' desks.
Attorney Michele Waldinger noticed it when she returned to work Monday after the long holiday. Feeling the holiday spirit, she asked the building's manager if she could donate a menorah and tissue paper dreidels for a Hanukkah display nearby.
The 14-inch menorah was placed on a ledge at the rear of the rotunda, where it became a source of controversy almost immediately.
Over the past three days, as both the menorah and tree were removed from and then returned to the ornate courthouse lobby, a debate has raged throughout the offices above: Where is the line between holiday decor and religious expression?
There is no easy answer, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows public displays of both icons as symbols of the holiday season.
"This is a perennial fight in communities across the country," said Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., and a national expert on the debate over holiday displays. "It's very difficult for government to do religion and get it right."
Christian symbols?
From the city hall of Durham, N.C., which eliminated Hanukkah and Kwanzaa symbols in its holiday display this year, to the Indiana University School of Law, which replaced its Christmas tree in 2002 with a generic winter scene, the evergreen symbol of holiday cheer has drawn angry debate.
Central to the debate is whether the Christmas tree, which has its roots in pagan symbolism, is a symbol of Christianity or merely a secular symbol of the holiday season akin to Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
"Many non-Christians see the tree and Santa Claus as Christian symbols," said Haynes, who writes a column on religious freedom. "But when menorahs are stuck next to the trees, many Christians feel left out, because they don't see themselves as the Christmas tree."
In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the issue, ruling that a menorah and a Christmas tree displayed together with a holiday season legend were secular symbols and allowable in a public display.
The ruling prompted many governmental bodies to erect generic displays combining Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman, with religious symbols such as the Christmas creche and Hanukkah menorah.
Both or neither
After Waldinger placed her menorah at the rear of the courthouse rotunda, some occupants complained that it was a religious symbol and not appropriate for public display in a courthouse. They said its presence singled out one religion, and could open the door for the courthouse to be required to display other religious and nonreligious holiday displays.
Waldinger was asked to move her menorah by Rob Rigsby, who oversees the building's operations for the U.S. General Services Administration. He told her he also would be removing the bow-topped Christmas tree, which shone in the front window of the building.
"I said, 'How is Judaism being singled out with a 14-inch menorah when there's a 9-foot Christmas tree?'"
But while Waldinger was angry about the menorah, she said she pleaded with Rigsby not to remove the tree, fearing it would ignite anti-Jewish sentiment.