On quiet nights during the Christmas season, Ed O’Malley enjoys visiting the Nativity scene he helps set up every year in an Arlington Heights park.
He’ll check whether the wind has blown over a statue, or whether any lights have gone out.
On relatively warm evenings, many families will be out and about, O’Malley said. Usually, they’ll end up in front of the depiction of infant Jesus.
“Many times, you’ll see the little children will look in and they’ll touch the statues,” said O’Malley, 64, of nearby Prospect Heights. “A few times, you see a father or a mother just get down on a knee, and you can see that she’s explaining to them what this is.”
Despite some misconceptions — stemming from the First Amendment’s separation of church and state — private groups can put up Nativity scenes on public property as an expression of free speech after a federal judge ruled in 1988 that religious exhibits could be erected if maintained by private groups.
Private groups can put up Hanukkah menorahs on public property to celebrate the Jewish holiday. Likewise, private groups can put up atheist, satanic, artistic, political, apolitical, eco-modernist or anarcho-pacifist displays on public property, if they so desire.