Suit Demands Nativity on Public Land

(Oct. 30) -- A clash between the Constitution and a Christmas tradition has led to a federal lawsuit in Warren, Mich.

John Satawa is fighting to return the Nativity scene his father built in 1945 to the median of a public street. The Thomas More Law Center, a Michigan firm that promotes Christian values, filed a suit on his behalf last week, charging Satawa's rights to free speech and equal protection under the law have been violated.

The Macomb County Road Commission, which ordered the creche removed, also cited the First Amendment. After receiving a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, of Madison, Wis., last December, the commission ruled the display on public property violated the separation of church and state.

"The Nativity display has been a tradition not just for my family, but for the whole community for 63 years," Satawa said in a statement to Fox News.

The tradition began when Satawa's dad built the structure to house Nativity figures that were too large to display inside St. Anne's Parish Church, according to the lawsuit. It said the village president gave permission to put the creche in the median across from the church, and it has been there every Christmas season since 1945 -- except for 1996, when there was road construction at the site.

Satawa's rights aren't being violated because he could move the display on any public property near the church, the lawyer representing the road commission told The Detroit News.

Besides the constitutional questions, the 8-by-8-foot Nativity scene poses a practical problem. The leader of the group that complained called it a traffic hazard.

"You can't see around it," Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor told Fox. "I can't understand why they can't put the scene on their church grounds."