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No, only two justices voted that the nativity scene violated the Establishment Clause while the menorah did not. Three judges voted that both violated the Establishment Clause and four voted that neither did.
The argument was not so much that a menorah per se is a secular symbol, but rather only that that particular menorah was, in large part because it was part of a larger display which included a Christmas tree and a celebration of liberty, all of whuch they deemed secular.
The Court actually remanded the case to determine whether the menorah violated the Establishment Clause for reasons not addressed in the appeal.
The Court okayed the display of a creche in 1984 in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668. The difference in Allegheny, in the view of the five justices who voted that the creche was NG, was that "Here, unlike in Lynch, nothing in the context of the display detracts from the creche's religious message. The Lynch display composed a series of figures and objects, each group of which had its own focal point. Santa's house and his reindeer were objects of attention separate from the creche, and had their specific visual story to tell. Similarly, whatever a "talking" wishing well may be, it obviously was a center of attention separate from the creche. Here, in contrast, the creche stands alone: it is the single element of the display on the Grand Staircase." Note that this analysis is the same as that applied to the menorah.
The creche also included the phrase, "Glory to God in the Highest!"
And here is how Justice Gorsuch summarized the case law, just last May: "May a State or local government display a Christmas nativity scene? Some courts said yes, others no. How about a menorah? Again, the answers ran both ways."
So, your example doesn’t work.
Why are you saying "No" when you are just restating the verdict as I've described?
Obviously that is how judicial precedent works. But that particular menorah was not a secular symbol, that is an absurd claim. It was a sacred Jewish symbol, including that particular menorah.
Where exactly are the elements distracting the menorah outside the White House or the world's largest menorah in Central Park? Menorah lighting is clearly privileged well beyond the display of the Nativity scene, both in case law and in just using your eyes to see which of the two towers over the White House and Central Park. Gorsuch may be hinting that this will be revisited, which would be a good win for Christians and interesting Culture War moment. But the status quo obviously privileges the menorah above the Nativity.
I know I'm wasting my time, but:
Please read more carefully.
What I said has nothing to do with "how judicial precedent works"
A creche is far more of a sacred religious symbol than is a menorah, given how what a trivial part of Judaism Hannukah is, and how central Xmas is to Christianity. Yet, as Justice Gorsuch notes, sometimes creches are OK, and sometimes not. It depends on the particular creche, same as re menorahs.
Both appear to be privately funded. When government has a policy of opening public spaces to privately funded displays, it cannot exclude religious displays
Part of your confusion is that you seem to be under the misapprehension that simply displaying a religious symbol is an Establishment Clause violation, but the Courts has never so held. Rather, under the Lemon test, used in the cases you complain about, the display is OK if 1) it has a secular purpose; 2) it has a principal or primary effect that does not advance or inhibit religion; and 3) it does not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion. Re #1, that doesn't mean that the law's purpose must be unrelated to religion. Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987). Most importantly, it is the purpose of the particular decision to exhibit the creche, not the nature of creches in general, which is the ultimate question.
Note that the Lemon test has been criticized for years, and most commentators (and Justice Kagan) considers it to have been effectively overruled this year in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. But that widely misunderstood case is a topic for another day.
This is just a totally absurd statement. They are both sacred religious symbols. A menorah is not a secular symbol. Saying "one is more sacred than the other" is just trying to rationalize privileging one religious symbol over the other. Today I saw this Fox News article by Dennis Prager: Hanukkah made western civilization possible:
I also stated, to the annoyance of some here, that the menorah is a symbol of Jewish victory. And Prager affirms that interpretation verbatim. It is obviously a sacred religious symbol. The Talmud says:
So the Talmud mandates the display of the menorah to "publicize the miracle." That is a sacred religious symbol.
The menorah lighting at the White House and Central Park does not have a secular purpose. It has a deeply religious and symbolically important purpose. Jews themselves understand this. I know you are going to say it has a secular purpose, because you want to privilege Jewish sacred symbols over Christian symbols. But it doesn't make that position any more rational than it is.
Yes, but this article is historically absurd, and Dennis Prager is a mind-killed political ideologue. Hannukah is, historically, an incredibly minor festival in judaism. It only took off in the 50's in the U.S., when nice assimilated secular jews wanted their kids to have something to celebrate and get presents for while all the other kids were doing Christmas. The prominence of Hannukah today is entirely a product of Jews not being separate or apart from, or antagonistic to Christianity, but of them trying to blend in and become more like the secularized-Christianity of the American consumer religion.
For that reason, I would suggest not taking what Mr. Prager has to say too seriously.
It absolutely does - it affirms that Jews are a welcome part of the community, in the same way that the St. Patrick's Day parade did for the Irish and Columbus Day celebrations used to for the Italians. It's just not only that secular purpose, because the menorah is also a religious symbol for many jews. However, there are many assimilated, reform, and secular jews for whom the menorah does not have a special theological meaning, and who, when pressed, would say that the "miracle" is absolute hogwash.
Source: am half jewish, was raised jewish, but am non-practicing.
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As is always the case when people criticize legal decisions, I would suggest that when smart people with access to all the facts who have thought at great length about the issues involved, and who have had their arguments and conclusions scrutinized by other smart people with access to all the facts who have thought at great length about the issues involved, reach a conclusion, you might be a tad less sure of yourself when you think they are obviously wrong.
I would also suggest that the fact that you use Prager's claim re the historical significance of the battle that Hannukah celebrates as evidence of the religious significance of the holiday, you aren't thinking very rigorous about the claim you are making. Ditto if you think that my observation that "a creche is far more of a sacred religious symbol than is a menorah" is a claim that a menorah is not a sacred religious symbol at all. Obviously, both a creche and a menorah have [edit: I meant "can have" -- see my initial post re the Court talking about the particular menorah in question, not menorahs in general] both secular and religious meaning, as courts have repeatedly recognized.
Finally, the claim that menorahs in public places have no secular purpose is inane; they have the obvious purpose of reinforcing the idea that people of all faiths are members of the polity, which is clear to anyone who is familiar with the history of such displays, religious and otherwise.
Anyhow, as I said, I know I'm wasting my time.
It's a rationalization, but probably not the one you think it is. The courts don't want to ban Christmas trees because it would make them very unpopular, so they came up with this rationalization that they've become secularized. Then to paper over this and look like they were favoring Christianity, they accepted the menorah too, on the dubious but not groundless idea that Haunakkah has become secularized as a Jewish substitute for secularized Christmas.
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What I said was this:
That's the standard. And please don't embarrass yourself by saying "how do we know that Hanukkah is trivial?" -- businesses don't close in Israel for Hanukkah, the National Library stays open, and it is not mentioned in the Bible.
Those are, of course, two different questions. As noted above several times, a particular creche is often legally permitted, despite a creche, in general, being quite high on the sacredness scale.
As for determining the scale, the mere fact that differences cannot be measured precisely does not mean that they do not exist. One can say that Ronald Reagan was a greater President than Millard Fillmore without having to assign points. That being said, as noted, one element, but not the only element, is the nature of the holiday in question. A symbol associated with a holiday which is central to the religion in question (eg, Passover) is obviously going to carry more sacredness than a symbol associated with a holiday that is more peripheral (eg, Hanukkah, Purim). And, one way to assess the centrality of the holiday is, as noted, how they are treated by adherents: Are stores closed? Are govt services closed? What do adherents do on the holiday: Do they skip work and school, if schools are open (Passover) or do they go to work/school (Hannukah). Do those who rarely attend religious service go to religious services on that day (Passover) or do they not do so (Hanukkah)? Etc, etc. I am sure that you can think of other ways to operationalize that particular variable. And, of course, since all of the holidays in question have both secular and religious components, the particular symbol is important. Some are more religious than secular (a creche); others are more secular than religious (a Christmas tree).
I would also add that you, and the OP, seem to assume that a display of a menorah is a celebration of Judaism, rather than a celebration of the Hanukkah holiday, and that the display of a creche is a celebration of Christianity, rather than a celebration of the Christmas holiday. Neither of those assumption is necessarily true; they might be true sometimes, but they are not **necessarily **true. And that is why, as I have said many times, courts, when determining whether any particular display violates the First Amendment, be that a creche or a menorah or whatever, look at the particular context surrounding the particular display, in order to determine whether they constitute an endorsement of religion, which is the legal standard (or was, when the cases OP is complaining about were decided).
Finally, where is your standard? If my organization wants to rent a public park display areas to put up the world's largest Easter Bunny, is that OK? What about the world's largest Christmas tree? What about the world's biggest sign saying, "Jesus says, "on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"? What about "Accept Jesus or Go to Hell?" Now, maybe you want to say that all symbols with any religious content should be banned from public spaces. Or that none should. Great! But that is not current law, and since the issue at hand is the legitimacy of OP's claim that current law favors Jewish people over Christians, that doesn't address the issue.
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They also made the Roe vs. Wade debacle and upheld it for a number of decades, and how is it faring now huh?. Taking whatever the courts says as a description of reality is insane in my opinion, no less a dereliction of your duty as a thinking and reasoning individual as those that take activist words as gospel.
Bye the bye, you may want to cool it with the consensus building there, as it's not obvious that those symbols have secular meanings.
ah yes, all correct thinking people, of course. Because when you see a menorah, you inmediatelly think about your non-jewish family and friends united in a common goal.
I had a typo; I meant that both "can have" both meanings. See my original post, where I said, " The argument was not so much that a menorah per se is a secular symbol, but rather only that that particular menorah was." Similarly, Xmas symbols can be used as purely religious symbols, or as symbols of more secular values ("Peace on Earth and goodwill to Men"), or as both.
The point is not whether the decisions are correct. It is that they happened. OP claimed that the courts have treated creches and menorahs differently. That certainly appears to be incorrect, at least according to Justice Gorsuch's interpretation of the case law, cited above. When I said "as courts have repeatedly recognized" I did not mean that that made it true, but rather that, when applying the law to these issues, the courts have treated both symbols as sometimes having both meanings.
Please read more carefully.
First, I said that, historically, the PURPOSE of govt putting up the symbols or permitting the symbols to be displayed on public grounds was to communicate the idea that people of all faiths are members of the polity. I did NOT say that anyone should, or even does, interpret it that way, so your reference to "correct thinking people" and to how people respond when seeing such menorah is irrelevant.
Second, you seem to think that I meant that it symbolizes that everyone is part of the Jewish community, but I didn't: These are symbols placed in public space, and I said that placing such symbols in public places symbolizes that all groups are members of the polity -- I said that it is a message by the govt to non-Christians. It is not a message from Jewish people to non-Jewish people.
Finally, I don't know where you get "united in a common goal." In Dred Scott, the Court answered "no" to the question, "can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States[?]" The Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause was intended to reject that conclusion, but it certainly says noting about "uniting in a common goal." They are too different things; obviously, members of a community often work on their own independent, frequently opposing goals, particularly in a liberal democracy, given that the right of each person to determine their own "conception of the good" is a foundation of liberalism.* Yet they are all members of the community nonetheless.
*I hope I don't have to explain which meaning of "liberalism" I refer to here
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The legal decision should be criticized for regarding a sacred Jewish symbol as secular when it is not secular. Jews themselves, the ones who sponsor the menorahs, do not regard them as secular. The decision relied on that logic which is clearly wrong.
What matters, at the end of the day, is that there are giant menorahs in front of the White House and many other public spaces where elected officials pay respect and promise support to Jews, and in those spaces there is no similar regard for Christianity. It's the largest menorah in the world at Central Park, not the largest Nativity scene in the world at Central Park. Allegheny helps explain the development status quo, but I am talking about the meaning of the status quo rather than simply criticizing the legal decision. So your hairsplitting really does not change the fact of the matter.
All religion has historical significance. The birth of Jesus, whether you regard it as history or myth, is itself a historically important story.
Prager regards the menorah as a symbol of Jewish victory, like many of the Jews I read who weighed in on their interpretation of why it's important to light the menorah in public spaces. "It's a symbol of Jewish victory, and it's historically important" does not make it secular any more than saying "The Cross is a symbol of Christianity, and it's a historically important symbol" makes it secular.
If the menorah were replaced with a Cross (relates to historically important developments, so it's secular!), and Joe Biden attended ceremonies for its dedication, and promised support to the Christian people and federal handouts to Churches and Christian community centers, and created a task force in the National Security apparatus to "counter anti-Christianity", would you regard that as the establishment of religion?
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Because what @Gdanning said is in no way what you described.
Here is the first sentence under "Opinion of the Court" in the article I linked:
The breakdown of the votes between the two sides of the majority is not at all relevant. I even linked the article where anyone could see the vote breakdown between the two sides. But the opinion was as I described.
The key point is that the articles are doing a lot of work here. Notice that it's "the" display and "the" menorah, not "a" display and "a" menorah. In other words, this wasn't a blanket decision saying that menorah's are okay but nativity scenes aren't; it's saying that given the specific context of each display one violated the Establishment Clause while one didn't, and provided some guidance for making such determinations in the future. Given the rhetoric of the actual decision, it's likely that if a menorah were displayed on the courthouse steps in the same manner as the nativity scene, it would likewise be a violation. It's also worth noting that there's nothing about the decision to suggest that it's any evidence of some kind of inappropriate Jewish influence. There weren't any Jews on the court at the time, and the organization that brought the suit, which was arguing that both displays were violations, was the ACLU, which, to put it mildly, doesn't exactly have a reputation for being devois of Jewish influence itself.
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