By Mitchell Banks
The Seymour Tribune
For The Republic
SEYMOUR — The privately owned Nativity scene that has appeared on the lawn of the Jackson County Courthouse nearly every holiday season since 2003 is constitutional, according to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
A three-member panel issued that 2-1 ruling Tuesday in the case of Rebecca Woodring v. Jackson County.
During a Jackson County Commissioners meeting held just hours after the ruling, commissioners President Matt Reedy announced the county had won its appeal.
Commissioner Drew Markel spoke for a moment before meeting proceedings to acknowledge the ruling.
“In a world where the Constitution is just getting put in a paper shredder, Jackson County actually stood up for what was right and took these people to the carpet and decided to do what was right for the people of this community,” he said.
“I just hope that this case will allow others that are bullied and threatened just like we were by these two different groups, they’ll stand up for their communities, as well, and take these people to court and get these judgments that we just got because this judgment is correct,” he said.
The two groups referenced by Markel are the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which represented Woodring, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which initially wrote a letter against the Nativity scene to the commissioners.
In the ruling, the court concluded the Nativity scene owned by the Brownstown Ministerial Association and cared for by the Brownstown Lions Club is constitutional because the court concluded the county’s Nativity scene fits within a long national tradition of its use in broader holiday displays to celebrate the origins of Christmas — a public holiday.
That ruling reverses a May 1, 2020, ruling by federal Judge Tanya Walton with the New Albany division of the Southern District of Indiana that the Nativity scene was unconstitutional because it violated the civil rights of Seymour resident Rebecca Woodring and needed to be removed.
For more on this story, see Thursday’s Republic.
