United States Supreme Court (1985) in the case of Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 669-670, 673 (1985), Chief Justice Warren Burger rendered the Court's opinion upholding that the city of Pawtucket, R.I. did not violate the Constitution by displaying a Nativity scene. The decision noted that presidential orders and proclamations from Congress have designated Christmas as a national holiday in religious terms since 1789:
<The city of Pawtucket, R.I., annually erects a Christmas display in a park....The creche display is sponsored by the city to celebrate the Holiday recognized by Congress and national tradition and to depict the origins of that Holiday; these are legitimate secular purposes....The creche...is no more an advancement or endorsement of religion than the congressional and executive recognition of the origins of Christmas....
It would be ironic if...the creche in the display, as part of a celebration of an event acknowledged in the Western World for 20 centuries, and in this country by the people, the Executive Branch, Congress, and the courts for 2 centuries, would so `taint' the exhibition as to render it violative of the Establishment Clause.
To forbid the use of this one passive symbol...would be an overreaction contrary to this Nation's history.
There is an unbroken history of official acknowledgement by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life....
The Constitution does not require a complete separation of church and state. It affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions and forbids hostility towards any.
Anything less would require the "callous indifference" we have said was never intended by the Establishment Clause. Indeed, we have observed, such hostility would bring us into a "war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment's guaranty of the free exercise of religion."> 1985US001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
1985US001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). United States Supreme Court, 1985, Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 669-670, 673 (1985), Chief Justice Warren Burger. Tracy Everbach, Dallas Morning News, March 16, 1993, pp. 1A, 8A. John Whitehead, The Rights of Religious Persons in Public Education, pp. 49, 52.