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The lone dissenter to the decision wanted to allow religious displays year-round. Either way, the town can be supportive of religion in general, but no one religion in particular. The Lemon test is that "government conduct (1) must have a secular purpose, (2) must have a principal or primary effect that does not advance or inhibit religion, and (3) cannot foster an excessive government entanglement with religion," according to the First Amendment Center.

Towns can allow religious displays, but governments may not put them up. They can only provide space, and if towns do provide space, they cannot censor what citizens put there. If Menorahs are allowed, so are crèches and crescents. Government has the ability to be friendly to religion while keeping church and state separate.

Mattingly has more on the issue in "How NOT to cover a religion news story" at GetReligion.

Church life:

• Churches becoming community centers | Standing on the second-floor lounge of the Gathering Place, you'd swear you were in an upscale health club. (Indianapolis Star)
• At U.N., a Missourian who wears faith boldly | John C. Danforth, Episcopal minister, former United States senator and, after his swearing-in on Thursday, American ambassador to the United Nations, recently recalled yet another post — his service as President Bush's special envoy to Sudan. (The New York Times)
• A contagious spirit of joy and perseverance | Calvert singer rises to folklife festival (Washington Post)
• Houses to go up on church site | Alexandria council votes down appeal (Washington Post)
• Prayer is main course at Gretna dinner | The 11th annual Gretna Prayer Dinner was held with the theme "Pressing On in Faith" on June 22 at St. Cletus' Jerome Hall. (The Times-Picayune, LA)
• Successful Harvest: New Heights church draws 1,800 for 1st service |About 1,800 people attended the 3-1/2-year-old church's first service in its 35,000-square-foot building on Sunday, according to executive pastor Brian Hopkins. Construction of the $4 million building, located west of Skyview High on Wicks Lane, started a little more than a year ago. (Billings Gazette, Montana)
• Mother church grows, too | Just as Harvest Church has completed work on a new building, Faith Evangelical Church, which planted the Heights church nearly four years ago, is about to embark on a building project. (Billings Gazette, Montana)
• Vicar bans coins at wedding | A vicar in Australia has earned the ire of a bride who says the reverend's insistence that patrons use only paper money ruined her wedding. (UPI)

Presbyterian church assembly:

• Church assembly to elect officer | Four candidates vying for U.S. Presbyterians' top ecclesiastical post (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• Presbyterian panel OKs gays' ordination | Gays and lesbians moved a step closer to ordination in the Presbyterian church after a legislative committee approved a measure that would partly lift the church's ban on gay ministers. (Associated Press)
• Christian-Jewish relations to be studied | Assembly declines to suspend funding of new 'Messianic' churches (Press release, PCUSA News)

Episcopal gay bishop/dean fallout:

• Episcopal gay decision splits church | Last November, the Episcopal Church U.S.A. approved the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Church. That decision has now had repercussions in Nashville. St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church on Belmont Park Terrace is splitting, some members leaving to found a new non-Episcopalian church. (The City Paper, Nashville)

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June (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48