Gig Harbor Parks Board Takes up Issue of Religious Displays in City Parks

GIG HARBOR, WA — On Wednesday night, the Parks Commission held its first meeting on a vexing topic: how to fairly allow religious speech in city parks.

The issue landed in front of the commission after a controversy during the 2016 Christmas season over a nativity scene at Donkey Creek Park. Two Gig Harbor residents sought to place a Christian nativity alongside the city's holiday tree there, as they have done during Christmas seasons since 2008. This year, the city received a letter from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation threatening to sue if the city allowed such a display. The city decided to forgo this year's nativity to avoid a potential lawsuit and to figure out a fair way to allow religious expression in parks.

Wednesday's meeting began with City Attorney Dan Kenny giving the commission a thumbnail briefing on the latest law surrounding religious displays in public parks. Kenny said that it's definitely possible for the city to allow private citizens to erect religious displays in city parks through some sort of administrative process — the two best options being either a permitting process or a lottery.

Whatever the process, it could not prohibit free speech and could not improperly assist religion, Kenny said.

Constitutional issues aside, the more important issue for the parks commissioners to consider, Kenny said, is how they want the parks to look. With an application process, it's possible that the city would be inundated with religious displays that might literally take up too much space in city parks.

Then there's the issue of bizarre or upsetting displays.

"Depending on what you want the parks to look like, you need to understand that with an open application or a lottery, it's not necessarily the four things you think of first," Kenny said, implying that the city might get applications that some might see as distasteful or anti-religious — and at that point, the city wouldn't be able to ban them.

For example, in Lansing, Michigan, the Satanic Temple of Detroit has been erecting a satanic nativity over the last few Christmas seasons on the lawn of the state Capitol. The group was granted the right because the Capitol also features a Christian nativity, and the state can't pick and choose just because many people don't like the satanic display. The group's nativity depicts a satanic cross with a red snake and the phrase, "The greatest gift is knowledge."

Although there weren't many citizens at Wednesday's hearing, several distinct points of view were present. Some people advocated for the lottery, saying that it's the fairest way to pick which group gets to erect a display and avoids the issue of overcrowding.

Fox Island resident Susan Hyde said that she would prefer not to have any displays, but if the city must allow them, the process should be open to everyone.

Gig Harbor resident Charlene Christian went in the other direction, desiring only Christmas-appropriate displays in city parks.

"Whatever permitting process you choose, you can't allow just anything," she said. "If it's not appropriate to Christmas, then it shouldn't go up," she said.

The Parks Commission itself is an advisory board and will not ultimately decide how the city proceeds with the issue. What it will do is make a recommendation to the City Council about how to legislate the issue. Whatever policy the city chooses, it would apply year-round, not just during Christmas.

Image via Patch.com