The nearly 60-year tradition of a Nativity scene displayed at a park and hosted by a coalition of churches in Santa Monica, California ended, after a federal judge ruled on November 26, 2012 that the city can ban such displays, according to the California Catholic Daily website.
A controversy over the display about the birth of Jesus at Palisades Park erupted last Christmas season when an atheist group "manipulated" the city's lottery system for spaces, according to a nonprofit, resulting in only two booths for the Christian group that normally uses 14 booths for the Nativity-related scenes.
"It's a very sad day when a small number of people with an axe to grind -- people who do not like Christianity and who do not like God -- are able to prevail by manipulating rules to censor our message from the public place where it has been displayed for the enjoyment of millions of people for nearly 60 years," Hunter Jameson, head of the nonprofit Santa Monica Nativity Scene Committee, said.
Judge Audrey Collins denied a request from the committee to erect the large displays primarily on the grounds that the city's administration was overburdened with the permit process for the displays, according to William Becker, the group's lawyer. A temporary injunction to allow the displays to go up this Christmas season was not allowed.
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