CV NEWS FEED // The federal agency responsible for maintaining the U.S. Capitol lifted a ban on religious ornaments for the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree this year, according to the religious rights advocacy group Christian Defense Coalition.
Each year, hundreds of Americans create handmade Christmas ornaments and send them to the Architect of the Capitol agency to be included on the Capitol Christmas tree. The ornament guidelines for previous years stipulated that “decorations cannot include religious symbols,” Christian Defense Coalition reported.
This excluded ornaments depicting traditional Christmas symbols, including the Nativity, the infant Jesus or the Holy Family.
According to a press release, the Coalition emailed the Architect of the Capitol in 2021, arguing that the religious ornament ban violated the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
“The ‘People’s House,’ as the US Capitol Building is so rightly called, must be a place where all Americans should be afforded the right to come and peacefully celebrate and express their First Amendment Rights,” the Coalition wrote:
Since the definition of Christmas is, “the annual festival celebrating Christ’s birth,” it would be deeply concerning if ornaments celebrating His birth were prohibited and censored from being on the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree by the order of a government agency.
This year, the Architect of the Capitol agency removed the ban on religious ornaments for the Capitol Christmas tree, stating only that ornaments may not be “divisive or offensive.”
The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Coalition, said in a press release that he is “thankful the government has removed this troubling ban on religious symbols being displayed on the 2023 U. S. Capitol Christmas Tree.”
“The First Amendment promises freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion,” he said. “As we celebrate the powerful message and hope of Christmas this year at the U.S. Capitol, let us also celebrate the powerful message of religious freedom and the First Amendment.”
