BLACKMUN, J., Dissenting Opinion

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

465 U.S. 668

Lynch v. Donnelly

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, dissenting.

As JUSTICE BRENNAN points out, the logic of the Court's decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-613 (1971) (which THE CHIEF JUSTICE would say has been applied by this Court "often," ante at 679, but which JUSTICE O'CONNOR acknowledges with the words, "Our prior cases have used the three-part test articulated in Lemon," ante at 688), compels an affirmance here. If that case and its guidelines mean anything, the presence of Pawtucket's creche in a municipally sponsored display must be held to be a violation of the First Amendment.

Not only does the Court's resolution of this controversy make light of our precedents, but also, ironically, the majority does an injustice to the creche and the message it manifests. While certain persons, including the Mayor of Pawtucket, undertook a crusade to "keep ‘Christ' in Christmas," App. 161, the Court today has declared that presence virtually irrelevant. The majority urges that the display, "with or without a creche," "recall[s] the religious nature of the Holiday," and "engenders a friendly community spirit of goodwill in keeping with the season." Ante at 685. Before the District Court, an expert witness for the city made [p727] a similar, though perhaps more candid, point, stating that Pawtucket's display invites people "to participate in the Christmas spirit, brotherhood, peace, and let loose with their money." See 525 F.Supp. 1150, 1161 (RI 1981). The creche has been relegated to the role of a neutral harbinger of the holiday season, useful for commercial purposes but devoid of any inherent meaning and incapable of enhancing the religious tenor of a display of which it is an integral part. The city has its victory -- but it is a Pyrrhic one indeed.

The import of the Court's decision is to encourage use of the creche in a municipally sponsored display, a setting where Christians feel constrained in acknowledging its symbolic meaning and non-Christians feel alienated by its presence. Surely, this is a misuse of a sacred symbol. Because I cannot join the Court in denying either the force of our precedents or the sacred message that is at the core of the creche, I dissent and join JUSTICE BRENNAN's opinion.