For years, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has decorated its walls and halls for the holidays. The decorations always included Christmas trees. This year, after staff members set the trees up, the airport authorities had the trees taken down. The trees were taken down after a local rabbi threatened a lawsuit if a giant menorah (a traditional Jewish holiday symbol) was not also added as a display. Apparently, the airport authorities made the decision that it was easier to take down the Christmas trees than display a menorah and their logic is readily apparent. I can only imagine that the airport lawyers advised them that if they display a menorah, then they will open the door for numerous other religious leaders to make similar demands and if they fail to meet those demands, then the airport is setting itself up for a lawsuit based upon religious discrimination or simply put, favoring one religion over another. The prohibition against religious discrimination has its roots in the United States Constitution.

Most of us have heard of the concept of “separation of church and state.” The phrase does not appear in the United States Constitution, but rather finds it origin in an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists where he states that the recently adopted First Amendment had built a “wall of separation between Church and State.” The language that he was referring to in the First Amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” In numerous cases, the Supreme Court has defined the Establishment Clause as a bar to the government endorsing or favoring one religion over another.

The issue of religious displays on government property has been before the United States Supreme Court on two different occasions with differing results. The first case, Lynch v. Donnelly, involved a Nativity scene that was being displayed on City property. In the second case, Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, the issue again involved a Nativity scene but also a Menorah being displayed on City property. In the first case, the Court found that the Nativity scene display did not violate the Establishment Clause and in the second case the Court determined that the Nativity scene did violate the Establishment Clause but the Menorah display did not. The setting of each display was critical to the Court’s result. The question that the Court asked itself was whether the overall effect of the display was to emphasize or endorse the religious nature of the symbols, or whether instead the emphasis was primarily secular in nature.

The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport can certainly refuse to display all religious symbols, it simply can not pick and choose between which religious symbols that it wants to display. With regard to a Christmas tree, it is arguable whether or not the tree itself symbolizes a certain religion, thus subjecting the Seattle Airport to a discrimination claim if it chose to display a Christmas tree but not a Menorah or some other religion’s holiday symbol. Some have argued that the fact that a pine tree is commonly referred to as a “Christmas tree” clearly indicates that the tree symbolizes Christmas – a holiday having its roots in Christianity. However, it could as easily be argued that the use of a Christmas tree is not endorsing Christianity given how commonplace it is to display a Christmas tree – surely not every home or business that displays a Christmas tree is made up of Christians. Ultimately, the question that must be answered is whether or not the Seattle Airport was endorsing a certain religion by including a Christmas tree in their decorations thus requiring them to open the door and allow other religious symbols - a simple question but for many, not a simple answer.

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