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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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CHRISTMAS AND THE RUBY SLIPPERS As we viewed the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on a recent chilly evening, we saw a crèche display among the Christmas trees from the states and territories. The live animals characteristic of previous years were missing, but there was no mistaking the figures of Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus. My wife was shocked. “How can they do that?” she asked. “Won’t Mr. Bush have trouble with the ACLU?” I said Mr. Bush probably wasn’t worried about the ACLU for at least two reasons: (1) The courts – the ACLU’s primary tool – have no jurisdiction over the Executive Branch. (2) The ACLU sues only levels of government too poor to pay the legal costs of a lawsuit. Last January a publicity hound named Michael Newdow sued in federal court to stop the prayer at the presidential inauguration ceremony. He charged that it violated the separation of church and state. (The ACLU was not involved.) The country held its breath until Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist dismissed the suit without comment. I doubt if Mr. Bush and his legal staff were holding their breath(s), because they knew (or should know) that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over what the Executive and Legislative Branches choose to do about prayer, in particular, or the conduct of their business, in general. Likewise, the Congress can legislate until it is blue about the Supreme Court or the Executive, but those branches can ignore such laws except as the Constitution specifies. This is “separation of powers”. Historically, the doctrine’s violation has led to Constitutional crises of the first water. So Mr. Bush can put a crèche and a Christmas Tree on the Ellipse, erect a statue of Buddha, and have Kwanza karols sung in the Blue Room, and no one can stop it. Constituents might object, but it is not a legal matter. What Fox News Anchor John Gibson calls “The War on Christmas” – also the title of his new book – is mostly a campaign of threatened legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union, today’s 800-pound legal gorilla. Alert to any appearance of red and green construction paper in public school classrooms, the ACLU threatens hundreds of school districts each year with legal action unless they purge every trace of the Christian Holiday from their schoolhouses. Small school districts and towns cannot afford to fight the rich, powerful ACLU over Yule displays and activities. Officials figure this will have to be someone else’s fight, and one after another they cave without a struggle. Thus, Christmas has steadily disappeared from schools as well as from the squares of many towns. The War on Christmas is a war of legal fees where the richest player usually wins. A few of the many anecdotes in Mr. Gibson’s book:
Unless something stops it, the ACLU’s vision of a secularized America will be realized in a few years. The nation’s religious foundations and cultural traditions will be only memories. They will not be part of the common culture passed on to children through their schools and communities. Although a small slice of the American public welcomes secularization, most people are upset by it. Many feel that their country’s identity is being stolen, that their connection with the past and freedom to live as they wish are being diminished. They make laws, but the courts strike them down. What, if anything, can be done? Our Founders called the judiciary the weakest branch. If that’s true, then how did the courts become all-powerful? In the first place, we probably gave courts too much power by uncritically enforcing their rulings. But the courts are not truly omnipotent. It is an illusion. The people, not robed judges, are the final authority. The Founders knew the courts have only as much power as the people choose to give them. Indeed, court power has been curtailed on some occasions. Denied participation in America’s social and economic mainstream for centuries, African-Americans rose up in the 1950s and ‘60s to defy a legal edifice of laws and court rulings designed to disadvantage people with dark skin. Heroes of the Civil Rights movement like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., performed public acts that gave the cause visibility and moral gravity. Millions of Americans who thought blacks-only schools and whites-only lunch-counters had nothing to do with them ultimately saw that the entire system of segregation was unfair and un-American. Years later, it’s easy to forget what the civil rights movement was really all about: massive disobedience of racial laws, regulations, and court rulings. In the finest 1776 tradition, black Americans disobeyed bad laws and legal rulings to establish justice. Many ordinary people and some highly visible leaders went to jail for this. Their “law-breaking” offended some, but one should remember that not all law is just. Free people have a duty to disobey laws they believe are immoral. (Remember that the next time someone speaks of the law as though it were holy writ.) Dr. King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” brought moral outrage to the battle against segregation. His involvement cost him his life. Ditto for Medgar Evers and many others. But the idea was too powerful to be killed by bullets. Legally enforced racism finally collapsed because Americans would not countenance it. They resisted and defeated the courts on this issue. Dorothy traveled all the way to Oz seeking the power to get back to Kansas. But all along she had the power in the Ruby Slippers. Our Ruby Slippers – the power we don’t realize we have – are our disobedience of bad law. Civil disobedience in defense of Christmas might have a cost, but I believe it will be minimal. It could work like this: (1) The ACLU demands that a school district remove all Christmas symbols and activities from its schools, or face legal action. The superintendent, Dr. Smith, takes no action and skips the court proceedings. The court finds for the ACLU, but Dr. Smith ignores the ruling. (2) In a news conference, Dr. Smith states the district’s position: i.e., (a) that Christmas is an important part of the nation’s heritage; (b) that noting this enhances students’ education and harms no one; (c) that the school district declines to waste taxpayers’ funds on frivolous lawsuits; (d) that the ACLU appears to lack standing as a “harmed party”; etc. (3) When the sheriff arrives to cite Dr. Smith for contempt of court, reporters record the arrest and publicize it on TV and the print media. Students organize a Christmas Eve protest and sing Christmas Carols outside both the city jail and the court. Dr. Smith’s “Christmas Letter from the City Jail” is published nationwide. Focus on the Family, Fox News, Newsweek and other national organs broadcast interviews from his cell. (4) The ACLU asks the court to release Dr. Smith on First Amendment grounds. He returns home to a tumultuous welcome, founds a national organization to combat anti-Christian discrimination, and is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. (OK, that last one is a stretch.) (5) Other school administrators follow Dr. Smith’s example. The War on Christmas dies out. Although Christmas civil disobedience could cause loss of employment for school administrators or other public officials, that seems unlikely. Indeed, the idea of jailing officials who defend Christmas evokes the absurd proceedings in the film “Miracle on 34th Street”. When Kris Kringle’s sanity is put on trial the judge’s political manager warns him that he can kiss his political future good-bye if he puts Santa Claus in the nuthouse. Something like this dynamic would be in play if officials were jailed for ignoring ACLU lawsuits. Show me a sheriff willing to arrest a school superintendent who won’t kick Christmas out of his schools, and I’ll show you a sheriff who wants to retire. James Madison was right. The courts are the weakest branch. The people are far stronger. We just need to realize it. When we click those ruby slippers, the War on Christmas will go “poof”.
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