465 U.S. 668 (1984)
Each year the City of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, erects a Christmas display.1 The display is located in a park owned by a nonprofit organization and located in the heart of the downtown shopping district.2 The city acts in cooperation with the downtown retail merchants' association.3
The display includes a Santa Claus house, reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh, candy-striped poles, a Christmas tree, carolers, cutout figures representing characters such as a clown, an elephant, and a teddy bear, hundreds of colored lights, a large banner that reads "SEASONS GREETINGS," and a crèche.4
The crèche, which has been included in the display for forty or more years, consists of the traditional figures including the Infant Jesus, Mary and Joseph, angels, shepherds, kings, and animals, all ranging in height from five inches to five feet.5 In 1973 the city acquired the present crèche at a cost of $1,365.6 It is now valued at $200.7 The erection and dismantling of the crèche costs the city about $20 per year.8 Nominal expenses are incurred in lighting it.9 All components of the display are owned by the city.10
Pawtucket residents who are individual members of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, together with that affiliate, brought this action in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island.11 The suit challenged the city's inclusion of the crèche in the annual display.12
The District Court held that the city's inclusion of the crèche in the display violates the Establishment Clause.13 The court found that by including the crèche the city had tried to endorse and promulgate religious beliefs.14 It found that erection of the crèche had the real and substantial effect of affiliating the city with the Christian beliefs that the crèche represents.15 The appearance of official sponsorship conferred more than a remote and incidental benefit on Christianity.16 Although the court acknowledged the absence of administrative entanglement, it found excessive entanglement as a result of the political divisiveness of including the crèche.17 The court permanently enjoined the city from including the crèche in the display.18
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed.19 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.20
Whether the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits a municipality from including a crèche, or Nativity scene, in its annual Christmas display?21
The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.22 Government can run afoul of that prohibition through endorsement or disapproval of religion.23 The purpose prong of the Lemon test asks whether government's actual purpose is to endorse or disapprove of religion.24 The effect prong asks whether the practice in fact conveys a message of endorsement or disapproval.25 The Lemon test requires that a statute have a secular legislative purpose, that its principal or primary effect neither advance nor inhibit religion, and that it not foster excessive government entanglement with religion.26 The Constitution affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.27
No. The City of Pawtucket has a secular purpose for including the crèche in its Christmas display, which is to celebrate the Holiday and to depict the origins of that Holiday.28 These are legitimate secular purposes.29 The display engenders a friendly community spirit of good will and provides a seasonal atmosphere of celebration.30 The inclusion of the crèche is not a purposeful or surreptitious effort to advocate a particular religious message.31
The crèche is displayed along with purely secular symbols.32 The overall effect is to create a holiday setting.33 Any benefit to one faith over another is indirect, remote, and incidental.34 The crèche is no more an advancement or endorsement of religion than the Congressional and Executive recognition of the origins of Christmas.35
There is no administrative entanglement between religion and state resulting from the city's ownership and use of the crèche.36 Political divisiveness alone is not sufficient to invalidate otherwise permissible conduct.37 There is no evidence of political friction or divisiveness over the crèche in the forty-year history of Pawtucket's Christmas celebration apart from this litigation.38
The City of Pawtucket has not violated the Establishment Clause by including the crèche in its Christmas display.39
Related opinions on this issue
Justice O'Connor concurred in the judgment but wrote separately to clarify Establishment Clause doctrine by focusing on whether government practice endorses or disapproves of religion.40 She concluded that Pawtucket did not intend to convey any message of endorsement of Christianity because the evident purpose of including the crèche was celebration of the public holiday through its traditional symbols.41 She found that the display does not communicate a message of government endorsement.42 The overall holiday setting changes what viewers may fairly understand to be the purpose of the display, just as a museum setting negates any message of endorsement of religious content in a painting.43
Political divisiveness along religious lines should not be an independent test of constitutionality but may be evidence of endorsement.44
Joined by Justices Marshall, Blackmun, And Stevens
Justice Brennan dissented, arguing that Pawtucket's inclusion of the crèche amounts to an impermissible governmental endorsement of a particular faith.45 Applying the Lemon test, he found that the city had no clearly secular purpose because all valid secular objectives could be readily accomplished by other means without the crèche.46 The nativity scene reflects a sectarian exclusivity that the avowed purposes of celebrating the holiday and promoting retail commerce do not encompass.47 The primary effect is to place the government's imprimatur of approval on the particular religious beliefs exemplified by the crèche, providing a significant symbolic benefit to one faith.48
The display poses a threat of excessive entanglement through political divisiveness along religious lines unleashed by the litigation.49
Joined by Justice Stevens
Justice Blackmun joined Justice Brennan's dissenting opinion and wrote separately to emphasize that the Court's decision represents a significant departure from the principles embodied in the Establishment Clause.50 He argued that by including a religious symbol in its Christmas display, the City of Pawtucket has aligned itself with the Christian faith, inconsistent with the principle of governmental neutrality that lies at the heart of the Establishment Clause.51 The context approach dilutes the protections of the Establishment Clause and opens the door to further governmental endorsement of religion.52