Monday: County Christmas Tree to Be Lit
Ed Fuentes
Attendees celebrate the lighting of the 2009 tree.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Now that Thanksgiving has passed, the Christmas season is well underway. Stores switched over their music to a holiday playlist on Friday, and now the County of Los Angeles gets into the spirit on Monday evening with the lighting of its official 50-foot tree on the Music Center Plaza.
The public is invited to the 5pm ceremony, which will be led by County Supervisor Michael Antonovich. Festivities will feature a performance by the Providence High School Choir of Burbank.
The Music Center will again be the center of Christmas festivities on December 24, when the 51st Annual L.A. County Holiday Celebration returns with three hours of free performances. A new wristband entry system is designed to reduce the time spent waiting in line for this year's event.
Guest on November 29, 2010, at 10:48PM – #1
What happened to the First Amendment?
Guest on November 30, 2010, at 02:31AM – #2
@Guest 1. Sarah Palin took a dump on it.
To give you a better idea of the legal analysis though...
The Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971) held that the display of a menorah in conjunction with the large Christmas tree served merely to celebrate the “winter holiday season" and did not constitute an endorsement of a particular religion.
I venture to guess, that in this case, there is likely a menorah on the grounds somewhere and perhaps a Kwanzaa kinara about somewhere. The better question is how does it not violate the separation of church and state doctrine to give religious holidays observance by state and federal governments? Only google will know.
In other news, blogdowntown has admirably exercised its other first amendment right to freedom of the press by bringing this highly timely issue to our attention.