Displays on Capitol campus restricted
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November 01, 2009 - 02:04 PM
Last Updated: October 31, 2009 - 10:07 PM

OLYMPIA — The state is trying to avoid another holiday-season controversy by barring religious and other nongovernmental displays inside buildings at the Capitol campus in Olympia.

The new rules were signed Friday by the director of the Department of General Administration.

They still allow the annual state-sponsored holiday tree inside the Capitol rotunda.

Last year, a Nativity display at the capitol stirred controversy after a Wisconsin-based atheist group put up a nearby placard mocking religion.

A number of other displays followed, and the state eventually declared a moratorium that froze several pending permit requests.

The fight might just move outdoors. Under the new rules, religious displays are OK outside the Capitol buildings.

“It’s a shame that the state is basically shutting down 95 percent of Americans that celebrate a federal holiday, which it is,” said Ron Wesselius, a Thurston County realtor who put up the Nativity the past two years. “They are not letting them celebrate.”

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, said she was pleased about the new rules but added that they don’t go far enough.

“I don’t think Nativity scenes belong on the outside of capitols either,” Gaylor said.

She pledged to put up a large sign if a Nativity is allowed this year on the Capitol campus.

“We will match whatever they do,” she said. “I don’t think the public will be any happier about it on the outside than they would be on the inside. I encourage the state to avoid the entire debacle.”





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Latest comments

The war against Christmas continues!.....as long as anyone pays attention to the religious wing-nuts.

Posted November 02, 2009 - 06:48 PM by Lee_USA

Why, in this time of financial insecurity, should the state have any “holiday decorations”?  Save the money this year, and that goes…

Posted November 02, 2009 - 01:34 PM by brexcavator

Why is it that it is always the minority that wins over the majority.  Is the government afraid of the few.

Posted November 01, 2009 - 10:39 PM by boxcarduncan


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