Joseph Sabino Mistick: Courthouse holiday displays spread cheer, hope

The return of a holiday display — a Christmas tree and a framed depiction of a menorah — in the public square outside the Westmoreland County Courthouse is a small thing when compared to the big events of the day, but if it helps spread the holiday spirit, it may be just what we need.

A ban on unattended displays outside the courthouse was enacted by the county commissioners in 1997 to keep the Ku Klux Klan from placing a cross there, and that law is still on the books. At the time of the ban, the county made the right decision to prohibit all displays at the courthouse — rather than let the Klan have its way.

But this year, Commissioner Sean Kertes wanted to bring back a holiday display. As he told the Tribune-Review, “I had the idea that with a new courtyard, it would be nice to have seasonal items, like a Christmas tree. We wanted to mimic what Allegheny County does.”

In Allegheny County, a Christmas tree and a menorah are installed annually at the entrance of the City-County Building on Grant Street. Up until 1989, there was also a manger scene inside the nearby Allegheny County Courthouse.

That year, the U.S. Supreme Court disallowed the manger — and its banner declaring “Glory to God for the birth of Jesus Christ” — for promoting Christianity. But six justices allowed the tree and menorah to stay.

While that decision was pending — and in an attempt to avoid another costly federal lawsuit the following year — the City of Pittsburgh came up with a short-lived “Frosty the Snowman” themed display. There was little chance that Frosty would be deemed religious, so city officials dubbed him “Frosty the Agnostic.”

Some folks grouse about the court’s continued involvement in holiday displays, but our nation’s founders — weary of religious discrimination by the governments of Europe — were justifiably insistent that there be no endorsement by government of any particular religion’s beliefs or symbols here.

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That is just as important today as it was in the beginning, because there is always pressure by one religion or another to make its beliefs part of our government policy.

But the courts are loosening what that means for religious holiday displays. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was worried about the entanglement of church and state and whether a display made some Americans feel excluded. Since then, the court has said displays can be judged by their “historical practices and understandings.”

Some overtly religious symbols have fared better in the courts when they were mixed with secular symbols — things like Santa Claus and his trappings, Christmas trees and plastic reindeer. This is where “Frosty the Agnostic” was pure genius.

Even though many holiday symbols are not overtly religious, they can still remind us of the spirit of our respective holidays. Christmas lights and the lights of the menorah, along with similar symbols from other religions, are signs of hope. As the world seems to be unravelling all around us, we could use hope.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led us out of the Great Depression and through a World War on two fronts, said, “We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”