Loudoun County’s Nativity nightmare isn’t over yet.
The Board of Supervisors has scheduled a special meeting Thursday evening to decide whether to allow displays on the county courthouse grounds, a week after voting to overturn a late-November decision by a board-appointed citizens committee to ban public displays of any kind outside the courthouse.
Since the board’s vote, the citizens committee has refused to review any display applications, while local organizations await permission to erect their annual displays in time for the holidays. The meeting would come just in time for one organization to a display a giant menorah for Hanukkuh, which starts at sundown Friday.
Calls to committee members were not returned Tuesday.
Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio, R-Sterling, said the board would produce specific guidelines for the committee on accepting or rejecting applications at Thursday’s meeting. The meeting will be held at the Loudoun County Public Schools Administration Building.
Delgaudio rebuked the committee’s ban and said the issue shouldn’t take this long to resolve.
“There’s a general disdain for what the Board of Supervisors and the people of Loudoun want and deserve,” Delgaudio said.
The citizens committee was created to maintain the courthouse lawns and to handle requests to use them.
According to Supervisor Jim Burton, I-Blue Ridge, the committee decided to establish the ban after spending a year studying the legal issues concerning placing religious displays on government property.
Burton, the only supervisor who voted against reversing the ban, said the board acted too quickly.
“I’ve come to the conclusion in my mind there is no clear guidance on this issue at the Supreme Court level, and less at the lower courts,” Burton said. “And this is an area that we as a county government should stay out of.”
Despite receiving the board’s approval, the Leesburg Rotary Club decided to move its annual Christmas tree display to a new location in downtown Leesburg, ending a tradition dating to the 1960s. Club President Ron Rogos said the organization wanted to avoid getting involved in a political debate.
Supervisors are particularly concerned about an application for a display Burton described as a “vulgar parody of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas.’ ” Sterling resident Ed Myers said he made the display as a test to see if the board was truly following First Amendment guidelines.
“It needs to be offensive. It needs to be confrontational, so that we can determine if the board is right when they say, ‘We’re all for free speech, that’s why we’re opening up the courthouse,’ ” Myers said. “I don’t think they are.”
