Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has ruled that holiday displays can be allowed on public grounds, such as courthouses and city halls.
The official advisory opinion, which is not legally binding, was issued in response to a request from Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, on whether Loudoun County has to prohibit holiday displays, religious and non-religious, on public property.
The county is free to recognize holidays, as long as Christian symbols are balanced with other religious and secular symbols in a way that illustrates it is not making a religious statement, Cuccinelli wrote in the opinion, released Tuesday.
“Because secular symbols can insulate innately religious symbols from constitutional attack, decoration of public buildings with such secular items as lights, candy canes, wreaths, poinsettias, fir trees, snowflakes, and red and green ribbons should raise no serious constitutional objections,” he wrote.
The attorney general is required by law to issue the opinions when asked by a state lawmaker or member of a state agency.
The so-called “War on Christmas” surfaced last winter in Loudoun County, when a citizen’s advisory board voted to ban holiday displays on the grounds of the county courthouse. The Board of Supervisors eventually designated a limited number of areas for displays.
Marshall’s inquiry was prompted by constituents who were concerned about the Loudoun board potentially prohibiting holiday displays, he said.
“They’re not compelled to prohibit those displays, that’s the bottom line,” he said. “Better everything than nothing.”
The matter is a well-settled area of the law, and Cuccinelli is “really just saying what the law is,” said Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
“If a government creates a public forum for people to express themselves, then religious expression is as welcome in that forum as any other [kind of] expression,” he said.
The ruling is the latest in a series of high-profile cases. He wrote on July 30 that the state police can ask the legal status of anyone stopped or arrested. He also wrote on Aug. 20 that the state has the authority to regulate abortion clinics, much as it regulates outpatient surgery centers, a move that could arm state agencies with authority over abortion clinics that the state’s General Assembly has repeatedly failed to enact.
