Court Opinion

ID: 9476625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:00:43.680903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:25.030766
License: Public Domain

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.
Every winter holiday season for the past thirty years, a créche has been displayed in the lobby of the Chicago City-County Building. In November, 1985, the American Jewish Congress filed this suit against the City of Chicago and others (collectively referred to as “the city”), contending that the display of the créche violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The district court held that the case was controlled by Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984). In Lynch, the Supreme Court held that a city-owned holiday display that included a créche, and that was located in a privately-owned park, was constitutional. The district court therefore granted summary judgment to the defendants. We find that *122this case is distinguishable from Lynch, and we reverse the judgment of the district court.
I.
A.
The Daley Center Plaza and the City-County Building (better known as “City Hall”) form a single unit, divided by Clark Street, but connected by a broad underground corridor. The two buildings house both city and county governmental offices. Each year, from shortly after Thanksgiving Day to New Year’s Day, the entire complex is decorated for the winter holiday season. At issue in this case is a nativity scene which, with the city’s permission, was on display from December 4, 1985 to January 4, 1986.
The nativity scene was placed at the intersection of the east-west and north-south lobbies of City Hall, slightly north of the center line of the east-west lobby. The scene consisted of several white plaster figures, each under twelve inches in height, representing the infant Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men, and various shepherds and animals. Behind the figures were tree branches strung with miniature holiday lights. The display was arranged on a three-foot-high platform measuring approximately nine feet wide by eight feet deep. At the rear of the platform, and rising from it to a height of ten feet from the lobby floor, was a fabric backdrop, at the top of which was a banner reading “On Earth Peace — Good Will Toward Men.” No public funds were expended on the scene for repair, maintenance, rent, or heat. However, a nominal amount of public funds was expended on the electricity required to illuminate the scene. Although the appellants allege that city workers erected and dismantled the display, the city maintains that the workers did so on their own time and were not paid for their work.
In addition to the nativity scene, the City of Chicago erected a number of other displays and decorations in the City Hall lobby for the 1985-86 holiday season. These included: eight Christmas wreaths, each forty-two inches in diameter, hung on the lobby walls above the elevators that service the upper floors of the building; one decorated Christmas tree eighteen feet in height and fifteen feet in diameter, which stood near the LaSalle Street entrance; a mechanical Santa Claus, accompanied by two reindeer and a sleigh that served as a depository for donations to “Share-It”, a city program designed to encourage citizens to donate food and supplies to needy persons; and other displays that formed part of the “Share-It” program, such as stacked cartons in the north side of the north-south lobby and a banner strung across and above the intersection of the east-west and north-south lobbies. These decorations and displays were placed from ten to ninety feet away from the nativity scene.
Still further away were other seasonal decorations and displays. For instance, the first-floor window-wells of City Hall contained small Christmas trees with lights; the potted trees along the curb on LaSalle Street were strung with lights; and a ninety-foot, decorated Christmas tree stood in the Daley Center Plaza. As part of the “Share-It” program, the city also erected a large “snowman” and a contribution box display in the plaza.
Finally, the entire complex served as a forum for public performances relating to the holiday season, such as local schoolchildren performing Christmas carols. In addition, recorded holiday music played continuously in the Daley Center Plaza.
B.
The nativity scene at issue has a long and somewhat troubled history. The display was built over thirty years ago by the Chicago Plasterer’s Institute, a private entity, and donated to the City of Chicago. In 1978, the American Civil Liberties Union and others sued the city, charging that the display violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. That lawsuit ended in a consent order in 1979. See DeSpain v. City of Chicago, No. 78 C 4997 (N.D.Ill. Dec. 6, 1979). Under the consent *123order, the city was permitted to continue to display the créche in the City Hall lobby, provided that the city expend no public funds for the display, and that it affix written disclaimer-of-endorsement signs to the display. Consequently, the city attached six rectangular disclaimer signs to the nativity scene, two affixed to the front of the display platform, and two located on each side of the display. Each sign measured approximately seven and one-half inches by ten inches, and read: “Donated by the Chicago Plasterer’s Institute — this exhibit is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Government of the City of Chicago.” As a result of the DeSpain litigation, the city alleges that it also transferred title in the display back to the Plasterer’s Institute.
In 1984, William Ware, the mayor’s chief of staff, ordered that the display be dismantled. However, this decision caused intense public outcry, and Mayor Washington eventually ordered the nativity scene reerected.
The events related to this litigation began in October, 1985, when Sylvia Neil, the Midwest Legal Director of the American Jewish Congress (“AJC”), wrote a letter to Ernest Barefield, the mayor’s chief of staff, requesting on behalf of her organization that the city not allow the display of the créche in City Hall during the 1985-86 holiday season. Barefield responded that the nativity scene would continue to be displayed, because: (1) it had been a traditional part of the city’s holiday festivities for many years; (2) the Supreme Court had made clear in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984) and in Board of Trustees v. McCreary, 471 U.S. 83, 105 S.Ct. 1859, 85 L.Ed.2d 63 (1985) that such displays were not unconstitutional; and (3) public sentiment favored such holiday displays.
The AJC subsequently sued the city for injunctive and declaratory relief, and for damages and costs, arguing that the display violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. After discovery, the district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and the AJC appealed. We reverse.
II.
The AJC first argues that the district court improperly granted summary judgment to the defendants in this case because there are disputed material issues of fact. We reject this argument.
The AJC points out that the parties differ as to whether the nativity scene should be viewed as self-contained or as part of a larger holiday display; whether the créche depicts a historical event or is a religious symbol; whether the créche has symbolic meaning; and whether the créche communicates a “message of government endorsement,” see Lynch, 465 U.S. at 690, 104 S.Ct. at 1368 (O’Connor, J., concurring). But, as the district court correctly noted, these disputes involve conclusions of law rather than facts. The AJC also points to disputes between the parties as to the City’s alleged preferential treatment of the créche over other displays in the City Hall lobby, the political divisiveness engendered by the display, and the true ownership of the créche. Although these disputes involve issues of fact, none raises a material issue that would require a remand for trial. We therefore proceed to the merits of the case.
III.
A.
The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” U.S. ConstAmend. I. It has often been contended that the drafters of the amendment had only two narrow purposes in mind: to prevent the establishment of a national church, and to forbid a national preference of one Christian sect over another. Thus, a commentator wrote in 1851 that “the real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national *124ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.” 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1877, at 594 (1851) (quoted in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 52 n. 36, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 2488 n. 36, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985)); see also Wallace, 472 U.S. at 106, 105 S.Ct. at 2516 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (The Establishment Clause “forbade establishment of a national religion, and forbade preference among religious sects or denominations.”); ACLU v. City of St. Charles, 794 F.2d 265, 269 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct. 458, 93 L.Ed.2d 403 (1986) (The original purpose of the Establishment Clause was “to prevent the national government from setting up an established church.”).
Over time, however, the courts have come to recognize that the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment signify a broader set of principles. One of these is the principle that government — at all levels— should stay out of religious affairs. This principle has been memorialized in Thomas Jefferson’s famous metaphor of a “wall of separation” between church and state. See Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 18, 67 S.Ct. 504, 513, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947); 8 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 113 (H. Washington ed. 1861).
The Religion Clauses have also come to stand for the principle of government neutrality, meaning not only that government should not favor one religion over another, but also that government should not favor religion over nonreligion. See Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 103-04, 89 S.Ct. 266, 270, 21 L.Ed.2d 228 (1968); Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 226, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 1573-74, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963); see also St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 270 (The Supreme Court “has treated the establishment clause as a directive to the courts to strike down all public acts ... whose primary purpose or predominant effect is to promote one religious group at the expense of others or even promote religion as a whole at the expense of the nonreligious.”).
Finally, and most importantly, the Religion Clauses have come to symbolize the principle of liberty and the individual’s right to conscience. See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 50, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 2486-87, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985) (“[T]he Court has identified the individual’s freedom of conscience as the central liberty that unifies the various clauses in the First Amendment.”); ACLU v. City of Birmingham, 791 F.2d 1561, 1563 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct. 421, 93 L.Ed.2d 371 (1986) (“Every person must be free to make decisions in religious matters without any compulsion or interference by government.”); J. Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1795, in The Complete Madison 299 (S. Padover ed. 1953) (“The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.”).
Because of these broad, often conflicting visions behind the Religion Clauses, the Establishment Clause erects a ‘“blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier depending on all the circumstances of a particular relationship.’” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 679, 104 S.Ct. at 1362 (quoting Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 614, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 2112, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971)). However, the Supreme Court has provided some guidance. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court adopted a three-part test for analyzing Establishment Clause cases. “First, the legislature must have adopted the law with a secular purpose. Second, the statute’s principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Third, the statute must not result in an excessive entanglement of government with religion.” Edwards v. Aguillard, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 2577, 96 L.Ed.2d 510 (1987); see Lemon, 403 U.S. at 612-13, 91 S.Ct. at 2111.1 The *125district court did not analyze this case under the Lemon test, because in its view Lynch was clearly controlling. We find that Lynch is distinguishable, and that the display of the nativity scene violated the second prong of Lemon.
B.
In Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984), the Supreme court considered the constitutionality of a nativity scene that had formed part of an annual Christmas display owned and erected by the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The display was situated “in a park owned by a nonprofit organization and located in the heart of the shopping district,” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 671, 104 S.Ct. at 1358. In addition to the nativity scene, the display included, among other things, “a Santa Claus house, reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh, candy-striped poles, a Christmas tree, carolers, cutout figures representing such characters as a clown, an elephant, and a teddy bear, hundreds of colored lights, [and] a large banner that read[ ] ‘SEASONS GREETINGS,”’ id. The district court concluded that the inclusion of a nativity scene in this display violated all three prongs of Lemon, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed.
The Court began its analysis by noting that in each Establishment Clause case, “the inquiry calls for line-drawing; no fixed, per se rule can be framed.” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 678, 104 S.Ct. at 1362. The Court then held that, in the case before it, the district court had “plainly erred by focusing almost exclusively on the créche,” id. at 680, 104 S.Ct. at 1363. The relevant inquiry, according to the Court, was not whether a nativity scene, considered in the abstract, is a religious symbol, but whether the particular display at issue, considered in its overall context, could be said to advance religion. In the Court’s judgment, given the overwhelmingly secular character of the Pawtucket display as a whole, “the inclusion of a single symbol of a particular historic religious event ... [did not] so ‘taint’ the city’s exhibit as to render it violative of the Establishment Clause,” id. at 686, 104 S.Ct. at 1366.
The district court in this case erred when it concluded that the City Hall nativity scene “matche[d] squarely the Christmas context contemplated by the Supreme Court in Lynch,” American Jewish Congress v. Chicago, No. 85 C 9471, at 16 (N.D.Ill. Nov. 5, 1986). The Court in Lynch found it highly significant that the créche in that case was only one element in a larger display that consisted in large part of secularized symbols and decorations. “These features combine[d] to make the government’s display of the créche in this particular physical setting no more an endorsement of religion than such governmental ‘acknowledgements’ of religion as legislative prayers,” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 692-93, 104 S.Ct. at 1369 (O’Connor, J., concurring). This case is different. Despite the City of Chicago’s contention that the entire City Hall-Daley Center Plaza complex constitutes a single display for purposes of the Lemon test, the evidence supports the conclusion that the nativity scene was self-contained, rather than one element of a larger display. For instance, the closest decoration to the nativity scene — the “Share-It” banner ten feet away, suspended above the intersection of the lobbies in City Hall — was thematically related to the other elements of the “Share-It” display (the Santa Claus, reindeer, and sleigh full of donated canned goods), but not to the nativity scene. Similarly, the wreaths on the wall above the elevators, although perhaps visible to an observer standing near the créche, cannot reasonably be said to have been part of the same “display.” Finally, the wording of the disclaimer signs affixed to the platform of the display called attention to the nativity *126scene as a distinct entity. In this case, therefore, unlike Lynch, the secularized decorations in the vicinity of the nativity scene were not clearly part of the same display.
We need not, however, settle the debate over how far a nativity scene must stand from a Christmas tree or Santa Claus to be considered part of the same display, and hence “neutralized” by secular symbols of holiday cheer. In this case, another aspect of the nativity scene’s physical setting plainly distinguishes it from Lynch: its placement in City Hall.
The Establishment Clause is concerned with the messages the government may send to its citizenry about the significance of religion. See Lynch, 465 U.S. at 692, 104 S.Ct. at 1369 (O’Connor, J., concurring). The creche in Lynch, although sponsored by the City of Pawtucket, was located in a privately-owned park, a setting devoid of the government’s presence. But the display in this case was located within a government building — a setting where the presence of government is pervasive and inescapable. The Court’s holding in Lynch that the inclusion of a créche in a holiday display located in a private park did not violate the Establishment Clause cannot control this case, where the display was placed inside the “official headquarters building of the municipal government,” ACLU v. City of Birmingham, 791 F.2d 1561, 1566 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 421, 93 L.Ed.2d 371 (1986) (display of isolated nativity scene on the lawn of City Hall violated the Establishment Clause). Because the Supreme Court’s decision in Lynch does not control this case, we must analyze the display at issue under Lemon.2
C.
The first requirement of Lemon is that the government action serve a secular purpose. However, this requirement does not mean that the government’s purpose must be unrelated to religion — “that would amount to a requirement ‘that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups,’ ” Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, — U.S.-,-, 107 S.Ct. 2862, 2868, 97 L.Ed.2d 273 (1987) (quoting Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 314, 72 S.Ct. 679, 684, 96 L.Ed. 954 (1952)). Rather, the purpose requirement “aims at preventing the relevant governmental decision maker ... from abandoning neutrality and acting with the intent of promoting a particular point of view in religious matters,” id. — U.S. at-, 107 S.Ct. at 2868. The City of Chicago has not abandoned neutrality in this case.
The AJC, in arguing that the purpose of the City Hall nativity scene was to promote Christianity, points out that in October, 1959, Mayor Daley said of the scene, “We are a Christian Nation. I think the more religion we can get in politics, the better off we are.” This comment, although perhaps relevant to the original purpose of the nativity scene, reveals little about the purpose behind the 1985-86 display. More pertinent is the affidavit of Ernest Bare-field, Mayor Washington’s chief of staff at the time this litigation began. Barefield’s affidavit reveals several purposes behind Chicago’s display: (1) recognition of a city tradition of “taking official note of Christ*127mas”; (2) recognition of public sentiment in favor of the nativity scene; and (3) attraction of visitors to the downtown business district. None of these stated purposes is impermissible.
The city’s intention to “take official note of Christmas” by permitting the nativity scene to be displayed in City Hall is not an illegitimate purpose under Lemon. “Celebration of public holidays, which have cultural significance even if they also have religious aspects, is a legitimate secular purpose.” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. at 1369 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Christmas is clearly a public holiday, as well as a day of religious significance to Christians, and the Establishment Clause does not preclude the City of Chicago from acting with the intent to take “official note” of the day.
The city’s recognition of public sentiment in favor of the nativity scene was similarly permissible. The AJC points out that in 1984 the Chicago City Council, in voting to affirm the display of the nativity scene, stated that the creche “symbolized the ‘true meaning of Christmas’ for hundreds of thousands of Christian Chicagoans.” But this recognition and accommodation of religious sentiments is not the same as intending to promote a particular point of view in religious matters. The Supreme Court “has long recognized that the government may (and sometimes must) accommodate religious practices and that it may do so without violating the Establishment Clause.” Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct. 1046, 1051, 94 L.Ed.2d 190 (footnote omitted). In the absence of any evidence that the city’s stated purposes behind the display of the nativity scene are merely a sham, see Edwards, 107 S.Ct. at 2579, we must conclude that the 1985-86 display had no invidious purpose.
The second inquiry under Lemon is whether the government action had the effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. “[T]he mere appearance of a joint exercise of legislative authority by Church and State provides a significant symbolic benefit to religion in the minds of some by reason of the power conferred.” Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, Inc., 459 U.S. 116, 125-26, 103 S.Ct. 505, 511, 74 L.Ed.2d 297 (1982). An important concern of the effects test is thus “whether the symbolic union of church and state effected by the challenged governmental action is sufficiently likely to be perceived by adherents of the controlling denominations as an endorsement, and by the nonadherents as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices.” Grand Rapids School Dist. v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373, 390, 105 S.Ct. 3216, 3226-27, 87 L.Ed.2d 267 (1985). “Every government practice must be judged in its unique circumstances to determine whether it constitutes an endorsement or disapproval of religion.” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 1370 (O’Connor, J., concurring). In Lynch, the Court found that the Pawtucket display, considered in its context, communicated no message of government endorsement, but “ ‘merely happened] to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some ... religions,’ ” id. at 682, 104 S.Ct. at 1364 (quoting McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 442, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1113, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961)). This case, however, is different.
We begin with the recognition that “[t]he Nativity scene, with its figures of Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, the Magi, shepherds, angels, and animals, is an unequivocal Christian symbol, unlike the Christmas tree and the reindeer and the tinsel and Santa Claus,” City of St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 271. “A vivid tableau of the birth of Jesus Christ, it brings Christianity back into Christmas, unlike the star and the wreath and the tree, which for most people are in the nature of lifeless metaphors,” id. at 272. Thus, “none who sense the origins of the Christmas celebration would fail to be aware of its religious implications.” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 685, 104 S.Ct. at 1365. Lynch makes clear, however, that our analysis cannot stop with the conclusion that nativity scenes have religious significance. “Even the traditional, purely secular displays extant at Christmas, with or without a créche, would inevitably recall the religious nature of the holiday.” Id. Rather, the critical inquiry is *128whether, considered in its unique physical context, the nativity scene at issue in this case communicates a message of government endorsement. We conclude that it does.
The presence of the government in Chicago’s City Hall is unavoidable. The building is devoted to government functions: for example, both city and county government offices are located there, and the City Council holds its meetings there. Because City Hall is so plainly under government ownership and control, every display and activity in the building is implicitly marked with the stamp of government approval. The presence of a nativity scene in the lobby, therefore, inevitably creates a clear and strong impression that the local government tacitly endorses Christianity.
The message of endorsement is equally powerful on the symbolic level. Like the nativity scene itself, City Hall is a symbol — a symbol of government power. The very phrase “City Hall” is commonly used as a metaphor for government. A créche in City Hall thus brings together Church and State in a manner that unmistakably suggests their alliance. The display at issue in this case advanced religion by sending a message to the people of Chicago that the city approved of Christianity.3
The city has attempted to mitigate the impact of this message by posting six disclaimer signs on the display, two on each side, and two on the front. However, the message of government endorsement generated by this display was too pervasive to be mitigated by the presence of disclaimers. As the district court correctly noted, “a disclaimer of the obvious is of no significant effect,” American Jewish Congress v. Chicago, No. 85 C 9471 at 14 (N.D.Ill. Nov. 5, 1986).
“‘Government promotes religion as effectively when it fosters a close identification of its powers and responsibilities with those of any — or all — religious denominations as when it attempts to inculcate specific religious doctrines. If this identification conveys a message of government endorsement ... a core purpose of the Establishment Clause is violated.’ ” Grand Rapids School Dist. v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373, 389, 105 S.Ct. 3216, 3226, 87 L.Ed.2d 267 (1985). The government-approved placement of the nativity scene in Chicago’s City Hall unavoidably fostered the inappropriate identification of the City of Chicago with Christianity, and therefore violated the Establishment Clause.4 The judgment of the district court is, therefore, Reversed.

. Although the Lemon test has come under severe criticism by individual members of the Court, see, e.g., Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct. 2862, 2873-74, 97 L.Ed.2d 273 (1987) (O'Connor, J., concurring); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 112, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 2519-20, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), and appeared *125on the brink of being abandoned entirely in Lynch, see 465 U.S. at 679, 104 S.Ct. at 1362 (”[W]e have repeatedly emphasized our unwillingness to be confined to any single test or criterion in this sensitive area.”), the Court has nevertheless applied the test in all its Establishment Clause cases since Lemon except for Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983).

. Nor does the decision in McCreary v. Stone, 739 F.2d 716 (2d Cir.1984), aff'd without opinion by an equally divided Court, 471 U.S. 83, 105 S.Ct. 1859, 85 L.Ed.2d 63 (1985), aid our analysis. In McCreary, the Village of Scarsdale, New York, refused a civic group’s request to place a créche in a city-owned park in the center of the business district during the winter holiday season. In previous years, when the créche was displayed, it stood alone, but the display contained a small disclaimer sign that read, "This créche has been erected and maintained solely by the Scarsdale Créche Committee, a private organization." Id. at 728. The Second Circuit held that this display did not violate the Establishment Clause, but remanded the case with the instruction that the district court enter an order providing for a larger, more visible disclaimer sign. Id. The Supreme Court's summary affirmance, without opinion, gives us no guidance. See Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63, 73 n. 8, 97 S.Ct. 2264, 2271 n. 8, 53 L.Ed.2d 113 (1977) ("Judgment entered by an equally divided Court is not 'entitled to precedential weight.’”); United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 216, 62 S.Ct. 552, 558, 86 L.Ed. 796 (1942) (same). Moreover, McCreary is factually distinguishable from this case. As in Lynch, the nativity scene in McCreary stood in a park, not in a government building.

. "Endorsement [of a religion] sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. at 1367 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Justice O’Connor's observation is supported in this case by the evidence in the record. For example, Sol Brandzel, a member of the AJC, stated in an affidavit that he is an immigrant from Poland, whose first memories are of World War I. He stated that when he views the nativity scene in City Hall, he is "reminded of the government association with créches and crosses in Europe and that the state prefers Christianity." He further stated that the message he perceives from the display is that "as a non-Christian I am an outsider in the political community who is merely tolerated,” and that "[e]very time I see the créche prominently displayed in City Hall, I feel personally diminished by its presence.”

. Because we conclude that the display at issue violated the second prong of Lemon, we need not go on to consider whether the display resulted in excessive entanglement of government with religion. See Edwards, 107 S.Ct. at 2578 (if statute enacted for the purpose of endorsing religion, no consideration of the remaining prongs of Lemon necessary).