Liberty Counsel readies for Christmas ‘battle’

When a public school in Ashland, Ore., replaced a Christmas tree and Santa display with two snowmen over Thanksgiving break, Liberty Counsel, a conservative religious law firm based in Lynchburg, sent a letter to the principal demanding that the tree be reinstated.
To draw attention to what Liberty Counsel called “outrageous Christmas hostility,” the organization sent out a Liberty Alert about the incident to thousands of followers through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail.

“It’s a political correctness overreaction that frankly is absurd,” said Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Six days later, the principal reversed her decision, and Liberty Counsel declared victory. “Christmas returns to Oregon school” read the headline in the updated alert.

“There’s no reason why you can’t celebrate and acknowledge the religious aspects of Christmas,” said Staver, who also serves as dean of Liberty University’s School of Law. “To intentionally ignore it and rename it shows an underlying either absolute ignorance or some kind of agenda that is designed to eliminate it.”

Friend or foe

During the holiday season, Liberty Counsel runs a national “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign” that fights secularism in public schools, government offices and shopping malls across the country. The organization’s efforts range from providing pro-bono legal defense to compiling a “Naughty and Nice list,” encouraging consumers to buy gifts from retailers that Liberty Counsel considers pro-Christmas. There’s even a “Help Save Christmas Action Pack” on sale for a $25 donation.

Staver said the campaign was launched in 2003 to counter the “censorship of Christmas,” which he said has gotten “more and more insidious, absurd and widespread” in recent years.

The Christmas campaign is just one component of the vast and growing nonprofit organization, which has offices at Liberty University and in Orlando, Fla., Washington, D.C., and Dallas, Texas. Established in 1989, the Liberty Counsel operates with the help of more than 700 volunteers, including affiliate attorneys in all 50 states.

Its mission is “restoring the culture one case at a time by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family,” according to its Web site, http://www.libertycounsel.org.

Liberty Counsel is not without foes of its own.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit legal organization based in Washington, D.C., keeps an eye on Liberty Counsel and other groups from the religious right that it considers a threat to its goal of keeping religion out of the government, said its executive director, the Rev. Barry Lynn.

“We have had a lot of disputes for many, many years with Liberty Counsel over a lot of things, including their paranoia over the alleged death of Christmas,” Lynn said.

“They really are fighting a war that doesn’t exist with an army of lawyers that are not necessary.”

Lynn said Christmas is alive and well, and that Liberty Counsel “turns mole hills into mountains.”

“They find one or two errors, usually a mistake made by a government official or a teacher, and then they act like this is one front in a huge war that crosses the country. The examples are one-time events and often mistakes that hardly demonstrate some kind of massive assault on baby Jesus.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has clashed with the Liberty Counsel both in the courts and the culture wars. The purpose of the Madison, Wis.-based nonprofit group is to represent the voice of atheists and agnostics, and to “defend a wall of separation between church and state,” said co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor.

The organization has more than doubled in membership since 2006, with more than 14,000 members. This year, it ran a bus sign and billboard campaign in cities across the country with slogans like, “Yes, Virginia … There is no God.”

The atheist campaign made national headlines, including a New York Times story that quoted Staver as saying, “It is the ultimate Grinch to suggest there is no God during a holiday where millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.”

Gaylor said atheists and agnostics deserve a voice in the marketplace of ideas.

“And I think we’re asserting ourselves more because there’s simply more of us … What they (Liberty Counsel) could get away with in the past, there’s more of us calling them out on it.”

On the front lines

As the Liberty Counsel’s intake coordinator, 22-year-old Anthony Quaranta is on the front lines of the Christmas wars. His primary job is to field calls and e-mails from citizens across the country seeking information or help.

Quaranta starts to receive Christmas-related calls and e-mails before Thanksgiving, and typically receives five to seven a day, he said. The most common ways people hear about Liberty Counsel are through church pastors, Christian radio or online search, he said.

As a Christian, Quaranta said the job aligns with a personal goal of protecting Christmas for future generations.

“There’s so much tradition, history and culture that’s at stake,” said Quaranta, a recent graduate of Liberty University. “We’re always just one generation away from forgetting.”

David Corry, senior litigation counsel for Liberty Counsel, has practiced law for close to 20 years, and has been at Liberty Counsel for three.

For him, seemingly small incidents, like replacing a Christmas tree with a snowman, are not trivial.

“It’s part of a larger battle,” he said.