What A Fruitcake!: Falwell Lawyer Serves Up Heaping Helping Of Holiday Humbug
The Soviet Union is long gone, but Barber and Co. are still Red-baiting away.
The Christmas decorations went up at my house the weekend after Thanksgiving.
Let’s see: wreath on the door, Christmas tree by the stairs, Nativity scene on the sideboard, hammer and sickle on the…. Wait a minute! Where is the darn hammer and sickle? That infamous symbol of the old Soviet Union must be here somewhere.
According to Religious Right pundit Matt Barber, staffers at Americans United and the ACLU are part of a secularist plot to carry on the communists’ crusade against religion. The Soviets failed, so we supposedly have taken up the cause.
In a Townhall column tastefully headlined “The War on Christmas: It’s a Commie Thing,” Barber says, “The Commies’ modern-day American counterparts have picked-up where the Reds left off. Secular elitists within academia, the courts, the media and elsewhere proudly carry Communism’s anti-Christian mantle, goose-stepping en masse over the Christmas Nativity.
“Of course secularist groups such as the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State,” he continues, “feverishly lead the charge, waving rhetorical hammer and sickle overhead.”
Nice.
The Soviet Union is long gone, but Barber and Co. are still Red-baiting away.
If the name isn’t familiar, Barber is one of the lower-caliber loose cannons of the Falwell empire. He serves as associate dean at Liberty University School of Law and director of cultural affairs [sic] with Liberty Counsel, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s legal outfit.
Despite these meager qualifications – or maybe because of them – his column is filled with errors and distortions. I won’t try to correct them all. There are too many, and I haven’t got all day.
Here are a few.
Barber says that in 2005 “religious bigots at Ridgway [sic] Elementary School in Dodgeville Wisconsin – ostensibly spurred-on by the ACLU’s anti-Christian disinformation campaign – followed Communist Vietnam’s lead, secularizing ‘Silent Night’ for the school’s ‘winter program.’”
Fact: As my former colleague Jeremy Leaming pointed out in a previous “Wall” blog, the school was presenting a play titled “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift.” The 1988 play, written in part by a church choir director, is about a scraggly Christmas tree that worries it will not find a home for Christmas; it uses several Christmas carols with different lyrics to make it easier for children to learn the words. “Silent Night” was sung during the play, and an alternate version called “Cold in the Night” was recited.
Barber says Americans United, the ACLU and other “secularist Grinches” sue “scores of public schools and other state entities across the country every year for inclusion of ‘Silent Night’ or other Christ-centered carols, as well as for publicly displaying any authentic Christmas symbols such as the Nativity scene.”
Fact: AU has no cases underway dealing with Christmas displays or religious music in public schools, and as far as I can see, there are at best a handful of such actions in court this year dealing with those topics. There certainly aren’t “scores” of lawsuits out there.
In addition, Americans United makes it a priority to educate school officials about what the law requires. Earlier this year, we issued a new book that gives an objective analysis of court decisions governing religion and the schools. (Download a free copy here.) Our goal is compliance with the Constitution, not the filing of lawsuits. Most public school officials want to obey the law and respect America’s incredible diversity. I think that’s what has Barber worked into a frenzy.
Barber says “the Supreme Court has ruled, unequivocally, that such [religious] carols are perfectly constitutional and appropriate in any public forum (including government schools) so long as there is, included, a ‘legitimate secular purpose.’ That is to say, so long as secular carols and symbols such as Rudolph, Santa and Frosty are integrated. In fact, the courts have ruled that it’s viewpoint discrimination – which is unconstitutional – not to include such Christian symbols.”
Fact: The Supreme Court has issued no ruling, as far as I know, on the use of Christmas carols in public schools. (Note Barber’s use of the term “government school” – a typical Religious Right slam at the public school system.) The justices, in fact, have ruled repeatedly that public schools may not promote religion. Objective study about religion is constitutional, but Barber’s desire to turn public schools into Sunday schools doesn’t fly.
The high court has held that government-established public forums are open to both religious and nonreligious voices. But public school classrooms and school-sponsored concerts are not public forums. Barber is muddling together two different tracks of church-state jurisprudence. (I pity the poor Liberty law students who try to learn from this assistant dean!)
Federal appeals courts have said that public schools may include some religious selections in concerts if religion doesn’t become the predominant message of the program, but the courts have also held that schools don’t have to include religious music if school administrators don’t think it’s appropriate.
Barber’s analysis is just plain wrong.
We’ve said it before, but let’s repeat it once again: Americans United and our separationist allies believe in freedom of religion. We want government to protect individual free exercise but not favor one faith over others (or religion over non-religion). That’s what the Constitution mandates, and it applies on Christmas and every other day of the year.
In contrast, Religious Right activists such as Barber want government to favor their fundamentalist version of Christianity, and they spread misinformation and stir up controversy during the Christmas season to try to win public support.
Merry Christmas, Matt! Now stop spreading lies about us. It’s really not very Christian of you.