Newspaper Page Text
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE November 21, 1986 Page 13
Supreme Court: Christmas symbols illegal
by Joseph Polakoff
TSl's Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON—The Su
preme Court has again held that
officially sponsored symbols of
Christmas constitute impermiss
ible government endorsement
under the Constitution’s separa
tion of church and state. It also
found that under the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 as amended, com
panies must try to accomodate
the religious practices of employ
ees such as not working on the
Sabbath or their holidays.
Its views came in the form of
refusal without comment to re
view decisions by U.S. appellate
tribunals in two cases. One upheld
the Seventh Circuit Court’s deci
sion, written by Judge Richard
Posner, that barred officials in
the Chicago suburb of St. Charles,
Ill., from forming a cross in
lights on the roof of the city’s fire
department building. The other
let stand the Third Circuit Court’s
order for Volkswagen of Amer
ica to pay back wages and bene
fits to an employee who was dis
missed after insisting she have
Saturdays off for religious rea
sons.
In the downtown section of St.
Charles, Christmas has been
marked for more than a decade
by a display spread over six acres
that included Santa Claus, rein
deer, Christmas trees and wreaths.
Included was a cross of lights
strung on a television aerial and
crossbar 35 feet above the fire
house.
Two city residents, Joan Mark-
ley and Kathryn Giuntoli, sued
last year before Christmas that
displaying the cross was uncon
stitutional. A U.S. district court
blocked lighting of the cross.
Last June its opinion was upheld
by the circuit court. Lawyers for
St. Charles contended the injunc
tion was “a stilted overreaction
to a legitimate observance of the
Christmas holiday season.” They
also held that the cross is not
purely religious but supports a
secular purpose of benefiting the
display area’s merchants.
The circuit court held that
“when prominently displayed on
a public building that is clearly
marked as and known to be such,
the cross dramatically conveys a
message of governmental support
for Christianity, whatever the in
tentions of those responsible for
the display may be.”
In a Rhode Island casein 1984,
the Supreme Court allowed the
inclusion of a nativity scene in a
Christmas display sponsored by
retail merchants and the city of
Pawtucket that was located in a
park owned by a non-profit or
ganization. Earlier in the Supreme
Court’s current session the trib
unal allowed to stand a decision
barring the city of Birmingham,
Mich., from erecting a nativity
display on the lawn of its city
hall.
In an 8-1 decision in June
1985, the Supreme Court ruled
against a law in Connecticut that
required employers to give em
ployees their Sabbath day off.
Its opinion, written by then Chief
Justice Warren Burger, held that
the law advanced religion in vio-
The Supreme Court
upheld the Seventh
Circuit Court’s
decision, written by
Judge Richard
Posner, that barred
officials in the
Chicago suburb of
St. Charles, ill., from
forming a cross in
lights on the roof of
the city’s fire
department
building.’
lation of the First Amendment
requiring church-state separation.
The present chief justice, Wil
liam Rehnquist, alone dissented
from the Burger opinion.
In the current case, however,
the appellate court ruled an em
ployer must try to accomodate
such employees although it was
not totally required to do so. The
case was brought against Volks
wagen in 1979 by Angeline Pro-
tos, a member of the Worldwide
Church of God, who worked on the
assembly line of its plant in New
Stanton, Pa. Ms. Protos asked
not to work Saturdays. Volks
wagen rejected her request and
fired her after she did not show
for Saturday work.
The court ordered the com
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pany to pay Ms. Protos $73,911
in back pay and benefits up to
January 1983. She would have
been laid off then because of de
clining Volkswagen business and
not in conjunction with her com
plaint. The appellate court held
that “unlike the Connecticut sta
tute, Title VII does not require
absolute reference to the religious
practices of the employee, allows
for consideration of the hard
ships to other employees and to
the company, and permits an
evaluation of whether the em
ployer has attempted to accom
odate the employee.”
An amendment in 1972 to the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires
employers to show they are unable
to accommodate an employee’s
religious observance without “un
due hardship.” In the Protos case,
the court found her absence did
not damage the company and it
could have met her request.
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