Just when Americans thought they were free to celebrate a Merry Christmas with the election of President-elect Donald Trump, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Grinch spoils the celebration. According to the Indianapolis Star, The ACLU war against Christmas continued by threatening to sue the Indiana town of Knightstown over the display of a Christian cross on a Christmas in the town square. A resident of the town was angered because he felt a cross does not belong on a Christmas display. Bah humbug, right?
In America’s heartland families and children of this small town must have felt as if their wonderful tradition of seeing the Christmas symbols that warm the hearts of countless Knightstown holiday celebrants were being ripped out. In far too many American communities, this type of anti-Christian action was tolerated during the Obama celebration. What should Christians expect from a Trump presidency?
One clue might be President-elect Trump’s lectern that he used at his Thank You Tour speech in Wisconsin on Tuesday. On the front of it were the words Merry Christmas. Trump is definitely unlike the outgoing president who disdained and use his executive orders to shun any open public display of Christ, Christmas or even the display of the cross in public buildings.
In Pence’s state of Indiana, the current governor still has to celebrate one last Christmas in a state where one town resident Joseph Tompkins and his ACLU activist lawyer Ken Falk, can strip the good townspeople of their right to publicly enjoy an open display of celebration.
The ACLU director Falk contends that the Christian cross on top of the tree represents a, “represents an establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” reports the Indianapolis Star. One of the central questions that Americans in many, many towns across the nation have had to contend with is why does a person like Knightstown resident Joseph Tomkins get the opportunity to threaten hundreds if not thousands of town residents’ right to celebrate Christmas based upon the Christian religion the nation was founded upon?
Was Tomkin’s goal to challenge all the residents who celebrate Christmas and love the cross as a symbol of their faith to be dashed because he believes it bothers his sensibilities? He says in court documents that he wanted the cross removed because he “objects to any of his tax dollars going to pay for the erection or maintenance of the display or the lighting of it.”
The tragedy is two-fold. First, lawsuits like this apparent anti-Christian activist have been given safe haven during the Obama administration. Secondly, federal judges which have typically ruled in favor of ACLU lawsuits against public displays of Christianity were appointed by liberal presidents like Obama. Trump has stated that his stand on Christianity will not only be different but he intends to appoint Supreme Court judges who are conservative.
Judi Lake, Executive Director of the American Christian Civil Rights Movement (ACCRM) affirmed the right of Christian families and residents in Knightstown to celebration their tradition of a Christian tree and cross. “For far too long Christianity has been taken out of Christmas due to the heavy hand of government and especially the Obama administration. Christians have to be heartened that a President Trump will display the courage and conviction to rescue the celebration of Christianity at Christmas.”
Christian filmmaker and award-winning sports journalist Melanie Tipton, concurs. “The war on Christianity is very real. Recently Islamic terrorists murdered over 20 Coptic Christians in Egypt as a signal that Christians around the world should fear them.” The Executive Producer of “When Angels Weep: Rings of Faith & Fire ” added. “When Christianity is defended by a President Trump in America, all Christians will celebrate around the world.”
This is crucial, because in 1980, the nation’s highest court ruled against a Kentucky public school’s display of the Ten Commandments based upon the 1971 “Lemon test.” In the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman case the Supreme Court decided that a “ruling, the statue or display must have a secular legislative purpose, neither advancing nor prohibiting religious freedom, and must not result in an “excessive government entanglement””.
The Supreme Court ruled that the posting of the Ten Commandments in the district’s public school rooms has no secular legislative purpose,” and therefore was unconstitutional. A Trump Supreme Court would have the opportunity to overturn the Supreme Court ruling by showing that while the “[G]overnment and religion have discrete interests which are mutually best served when each avoids too close a proximity to the other,” the open display of Christmas crosses, nativity scenes and the like are unique fundamental underpinnings of America and its Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution.
In fact, unlike the Court’s findings that, “it is the devout believer who fears the secularization of a creed which becomes too deeply involved with and dependent upon the government,” Christians who celebrate the Christmas season with nativity scenes, crosses and others displays of the Christmas faith do so without dependence on government.
In the end, the Knightstown officials had to unwillingly submit to the will of the ACLU and the openly defiant anti-Christian resident, because the community officials did not feel it could win a lawsuit against the ACLU. In a post on Facebook the Knighton council said, a cross atop the town’s Christmas tree will be removed because the Henry County community could not win a lawsuit from the ACLU. “It is with regret and sadness that the Knightstown Town Council has had the cross removed from the Christmas tree on the town square and is expected to approve a resolution at the next council meeting stating they will not return the cross to the tree,”
Fortunately, in 2017 when Christmas season arrives, a President Trump and his administration will be armed with a Merry Christmas gift of new federal judges and perhaps Supreme Court justices that understand and embrace the true meaning of Christianity at Christmas.
When Angels Weep: Rings of Faith & Fire – trailer – upcoming Christian film – produced, written and edited by Melanie Tipton from Melanie Tipton on Vimeo.