Atheists groups in the United States have made a concerted effort the challenge to rights for traditional Nativity scenes to be displayed in public squares and have sought to replace them with their own displays.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is co-led by an evangelist-turned-atheist, has protested against the Nativity scene in front of the city hall in Ellwood City, and demanded that instead the city put up a banner reading, “At this season of the Winter Solstice, LET REASON PREVAIL,” alongside the Nativity.
The FFRF also demanded that a town in east Texas remove their Nativity scene displayed at the Henderson County Courthouse. The group wrote a letter to the Henderson County Commissioners, stating, “We request that … you take immediate action to ensure that no religious displays are on city or county property. Please inform us in writing of the steps you are taking to remedy this First Amendment violation."
FFRF added that when the county displays a manger scene, it puts the “imprimatur of the county government behind the Christian religious doctrine.”
In Santa Monica, California, 14 life-sized nativity figures that have stood alongside Ocean Avenue for the past 57 years have been reduced to three, after an atheist group applied for the previously uncontested spaces to display anti-religious messages ranging from “Happy Solstice” to “Religions are all alike, founded on fables and mythologies.”