Randy Hall
Staff Writer/Editor
(CNSNews.com)
With Dec. 25 only days away, a central image in the celebration of Christmas – the manger scene featuring replicas of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus – has become the focus of attacks by vandals and leaders of “the secular Left,” Christian groups charged on Wednesday.
While the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights was erecting a nativity scene in New York City’s Central Park, the group issued a news release condemning three dozen instances in which manger scenes were vandalized or stolen from Antioch, Calif., to Leesburg, Va., this Christmas season.
“In perhaps the sickest incident, a public school coach in Marietta, Ga., drove students around the area in his pickup truck, instructing them to thrash Christmas displays after dark,” League said.During their Dec. 8 vandalism spree, 46-year-old John Hayes and several middle school students damaged a number of Christmas displays, let the air out of inflatable figures and rearranged plastic reindeer into X-rated sexual positions.
According to the WGCL TV, Hayes has been charged with trespassing, contributing to the delinquency of minors and reckless conduct.
In addition to physical attacks, nativity scenes are “part of a larger war that the secular Left is waging on all things Christian,” said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) – which describes itself as “a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation” – in a news release.
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11562442/