-Atheists Win: 60-Year Tradition of Nativity Scenes at Santa Monica Park Is Over
by Dr. D ~ June 15th, 2012
Nativity scenes and other private winter displays will no longer be allowed in Santa Monica’s Palisades Park after the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to bar them.
For nearly six decades, private, life-size scenes celebrating Jesus Christ’s birth have been a fixture each December in the park that runs along the coastal bluffs.
Response: Wow, a Christmas battle in June. For three generations, families from all over Southern California have traveled for miles during the Christmas season to view the traditional pageant of nativity scenes at Palisades Park. Now after nearly 60 years it is over.
The City Council unanimously voted its way out of a controversy that had risen to national levels with atheist groups from all around the country competing with local churches and organizations in applying for one or more of the available 21 plots for traditional holiday display in Palisades Park.
Last year the controversy became a ridiculous sham when the city held a lottery to allocate the available slots and atheist groups won 18 of the 21 plots. One went to an appropriate Hanukah display while the Nativity story that once took 14 displays to tell had to be inadequately crammed into two small plots.
Here’s a link to our article on last Christmas season’s Santa Monica controversy:
-Santa Monica CA: ‘Out of Town’ Atheists Win Nativity Battle
Several on the Council expressed a hope that the tradition could somehow continue on private land. However, finding a private venue large enough to host the Nativity displays and still be accessible to the public is probably little more than a pipe dream. Out of town atheists win. Local churches, organizations, and families lose.
November 20th, 2012 at 8:44 am
[…] This year the Santa Monica City Council decided to shut it all down claiming that the costs had beco…. A coalition of 13 churches sued to keep it going but now it is all but over with the final bell ready to ring on December 3 when the judge gives his final ruling. However with his ruling yesterday it is but a forgone conclusion that the 60 year tradition has come to an end and the atheists have won. […]