ABSTRACT
In Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 US 668, the US Supreme Court addressed the issue of what type of government-sponsored Christmas display would be permissible under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The display at issue in Lynch was typical of what many communities traditionally engaged in at Christmas. In supporting the display involved in Lynch, the city contended that the purpose of the entire display was exclusively secular. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger's five-four majority opinion reversing the First Circuit noted that in modern times Christmas had taken on nonsecular elements, and that the other items in the display were purely secular. Christmas displays have posed Establishment Clause difficulty because of their religious overtones, and the Court's decisions have often turned on minor factual differences from case to case. The Establishment Clause is also applied to state and local government through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
