Loudoun County’s Nativity nightmare is over.
County supervisors on Tuesday voted to allow public displays — including religious and holiday-related items — at the county courthouse in Leesburg.
A board-appointed citizens group had voted to ban all displays, igniting a firestorm of opposition after the Rotary Club was denied an application to put up a Christmas tree at the courthouse, as it has for decades.
Residents Debbie and Dennis Welch, also, had petitioned to place a Nativity creche on the property, which they had been doing for 20 years.
A “Keep Leesburg Courthouse Nativity Scene” online petition had garnered more than 1,100 signatures as of Tuesday. Residents also poured into a public meeting Monday night to oppose the ban and bombarded the board with hundreds of e-mails.
Some residents maintained that the movement was about allowing all groups the freedom to erect holiday displays on public property.
“Whether you’re Christian, Jew, Muslim — it affected everyone in the community,” Andy Altman, a local Knight of Columbus, said after the vote. “We say ‘Merry Christmas,’ but it’s also a season of inclusion.”
Ken Reid, a Leesburg city councilman, was at the forefront in attempting to overturn the ban.
“The United States was founded by people seeking refuge from religious persecution, including Jews, like my great-grandparents, who emigrated from Czarist Russia in 1904,” Reid wrote. “I resent this modern-day persecution of religious and civic groups, who merely wish to maintain tradition by showing Christmas trees, the creche, or menorahs on the lawn of our beloved Old Courthouse, where once soldiers fought and died for our rights.”
Seasonal displays have been allowed on the property for decades, as recognized by the 2005 Courts Landscape Master Plan.
Members of the citizens committee had said they instituted the ban because they were getting overwhelmed by requests for applications to use the property.
The supervisors voted 7-1-1 to overturn the ban and require that the Facilities and Grounds Committee of Loudoun County Courthouse in the future bring to the board any recommended policy changes.
Jim Burton, I-Blue Ridge, who voted to keep the ban, was concerned about the speed of the process. He said it was “inappropriate and unwise” to make a decision without a full understanding of the legal issues involved.
Chairman Scott York, I-at large, was absent.
