by Lorne Yacuk

Created on: August 02, 2007

The hidden assumption behind this proposition is whether government should pay for decorations that celebrate religious occasions. The reality is that we are a largely Christian nation, and local governments often cover the costs of Christian celebrations, like Christmas lights on streets and public squares.

In recent times, there has been more attention given to this "favoritism", such as eliminating prayers from schools, and prohibition of the display of crches in front of churches. The trend is toward treating all religions as equal, regardless of what percentage of the population they are. If this means denying the vast majority of privileges in order to maintain fairness to all, then this is the price of freedom of religion. Governments, particularly at the municipal level must support all religions, or none. Moreover if they support the public display for all religious ceremonies, they can not use public money to favor one.

If governments decide to support all religions, even without funding them, these organizations run into a thorny problem, namely trying to define what is a religion.

There are several types of groups which claim to be religious in nature, e.g. paganism, devil worshipers, and such. These may be offensive to the vast majority, yet there is no legitimate way of judging whether a practice is religious or not. Put another way, governments certainly are not in the business of defining religion. This seems to eliminate the prospect of government permitting all religions to display decorations in public squares.

As one who enjoys the display of decorations on religious holidays, it is sad but inevitable that to avoid favoritism and government definitions of religion, the inevitable conclusion is to prohibit all such displays.

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