Raleigh OKs holiday display

A hundred supporters cheer a unanimous council decision backing an inclusive scene

The baby Jesus will mingle with a menorah on Moore Square this year, along with a reindeer, two Christmas trees and a family of snowmen.

Steve Noble of the conservative Christian group Called2Action got permission Tuesday to put a holiday display with religious themes on government property downtown, a request he called "unfortunately controversial."

But there was no controversy at the Raleigh City Council meeting, where his request for a display was granted unanimously with zero discussion. The approval brought cheers from about 100 backers.

"It's inclusive," Councilman Thomas Crowder said with a shrug.

In his drive for a display, Noble read through legal requirements that call for secular messages along with religious themes on public property. He said his group had met those requirements.

In the council chambers Tuesday, Noble read aloud President Franklin D. Roose-velt's Christmas Eve message to the nation in 1944: "Here, at home, we will celebrate this Christmas Day in our traditional American way because of its deep spiritual meaning to us."

Finally, he held up a drawing of the display his group will put up by Monday. It featured a nativity scene with two Christmas trees in the back, a snowman to the left, a menorah to the right and a reindeer further off to the right.

"We are confident that the majority of Raleigh will want to see this," Noble said, adding later that Called2Action will pay any expenses.

If anyone opposed it, they kept mum.

There was some sentiment Tuesday around City Hall that the group hoped to find opposition, get publicity and energize its base.

But for the most part, members found the display harmless. There is a Christmas tree in the City Hall lobby, Mayor Charles Meeker said.

No one could remember whether Moore Square had featured a nativity scene before.

"Seems like there was a cross on a fire station years and years and years ago," said Gail Smith, a city clerk since 1971.

Recently, Noble has talked of a disappearance of Christmas signs and displays nationwide as evidence of a widening secular streak. Some Christian groups, in response, have pressed retail stores nationwide to greet shoppers with "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays."

After the vote, backers gathered near the Christmas tree to thank Noble and exchange "Praise the Lord." One of them, Janet Hancock, wore a Santa hat.

"I'm in support of Christmas," said Hancock, a Called2Action member and a Raleigh homemaker. "I don't want [the display] to offend anybody. But the other side is offending us. I hope it won't get demolished."

Noble said he hasn't heard anyone complain. He spent an hour on a radio show recently and got the go-ahead from a pagan.

Maybe it was the tree -- originally a pagan symbol, after all.