Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Banishes Bill Of Rights Display From State Capitol

Display Featuring Founding Fathers, Bill Of Rights Removed From State Capitol – Governor Says It ‘Mocks Christianity’

Just imagine the hissy fit GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would have thrown if an LGBT activist had been successful in his bid to install a “gay Pride Festivus pole” at the state Capitol. 

Calling it “tasteless sarcasm” and “a juvenile parody” that “mocks Christianity,” Abbott on Tuesday demanded that a Bill of Rights-themed holiday religious freedom display be removed from the Capitol. 

The display (above), a sort of secular nativity scene sponsored by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, showed the founding fathers and the Statue of Liberty looking down at the Bill of Rights in a manger. The group’s “Bill of Rights Nativity and Winter Solstice Display” sat in the basement of the Capitol — also home to several Christmas trees as well as a traditional nativity scene — and until Tuesday went largely unnoticed by the general public.  

“First, far from promoting morals and the general welfare, the exhibit deliberately mocks Christians and Christianity,” Abbott wrote in a letter to the State Preservation Board, which approved the display. “The Biblical scene of the newly born Jesus Christ lying in a manger in Bethlehem lies at the very heart of the Christian faith. Subjecting an image held sacred by millions of Texans to the Foundation’s tasteless sarcasm does nothing to promote morals and the general welfare.” 

Abbott’s letter, which led to the swift removal of the display, isn’t terribly surprising. After all, Texas purports to prohibit atheists from running for public office, and the state’s Republican agriculture commissioner recently threatened to slap anyone who told him “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” But the governor seems to have a particular penchant for hypocrisy when it comes to religious freedom. 

After recently citing the Constitution to defend a traditional nativity scene in one Texas city, he did so again in his letter demanding that the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s display be removed. Abbott, a Catholic, also recently ordered faith-based relief agencies, including Catholic Charities, to violate their religious beliefs by turning away Syrian refugees. Indeed, in demanding that the display be removed, Abbott seems to have proved the very point that the Freedom From Religion Foundation was attempting to make. Did he ever consider that removing the display may have been precisely what the group wanted?