Anti-Catholic discrimination is in season in Fairfield, Connecticut

A federal trial court has refused to dismiss key claims that leaders in a local chapter of the Knights of Columbus, a national Catholic fraternal service organization, filed against the Town Commission in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Knights’ officials sued the Commission, which ostensibly relied on COVID concerns, for denying their December 2020 and 2021 requests to erect a small Nativity scene in a larger park than where they received permission to set up displays since 1983.

But the Commission allowed a menorah lighting in the same location while others engaged in various activities. This column briefly summarizes the facts and judicial rationale in Knights of Columbus Council 2616 v. Town of Fairfield before reflecting on its impact on religious freedom.

The facts

Since 1983, the Knights have erected a Nativity scene in a public park. One or more of its members kept around-the-clock prayer vigils in two-hour shifts from December 23 to the morning of the 25th commemorating the religious importance of Christmas.

Controversy arose in 2020, however, when Knights’ officials applied to move the vigil to a larger, busier park to better spread their message about Christmas.

Citing COVID concerns and one of its members’ assertion that many residents “adamantly opposed to anything religious” in the park the Knights requested, the Commission denied their application but would have granted it in the original, smaller park. However, “in the five years prior to the Knights 2016 Christmas Vigil applications, the Commission did not deny a single application … other than the Knights’ Christmas Vigil.”

Officials again denied the Knights’ request in 2021 but granted it in 2022 because the COVID restrictions were lifted. Consequently, the Knights raised six claims in the federal trial court seeking a declaration that the Commission violated their rights, ordering it to stop doing so, and requesting damages.

The court rejected the Commission’s motion to dismiss the Knight’s initial three related claims of violating their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech in the park’s public forum, the free exercise of religion, and to assemble peaceably. The court held that the Commission’s actions, combined with the statement of another of its members who wondered “whether the Christmas Vigil was religious in nature” violated the Knights’ rights.

In its analysis, the court observed that the regulations and procedures under which the Knights’ request was denied “vests the Commission with unbridled discretion.” Moreover, the court flatly rejected the Commission’s rationale as a pretext for discrimination because it acted under color of state law, meaning with public authority, in denying the Knights’ constitutional rights facially because the process was flawed as applied, insofar as it abused its discretion in not treating them like similarly situated groups.

Turning to the fourth claim, the court mostly rejected the Knights’ equal protection charge on procedural grounds because they failed to provide adequate proof they were discriminated against as a “class of one”.

The court granted the Commission’s request to dismiss the fifth claim under Article I, sections 3, 4, and 14 of Connecticut’s Constitution because the Knights did not contest their lack of a private right of action to file suit in their own names.

Finally, the court granted the Commission’s request to dismiss the Knights’ claims against two of its members in their personal capacities because these charges are duplicative of their allegations against the entire body.

Reflections and analysis

The Commission’s acquiescing to complaints from some residents who supposedly were “adamantly opposed to anything religious” raises questions why it yielded to such pressure while ignoring its duty to safeguard the religious freedom rights of all community members.

Equally troubling is the comment of the Commission member who wondered “whether the Christmas Vigil was religious in nature” but had no such qualms as to the menorah lighting. At best, this remark represents hubris and overreaching; at worst, it exemplifies public officials’ arbitrary interference in religious matters over which they are supposed to be neutral as they attempt to divine the meaning of theological disputes in a secular society. It is perplexing how the commission so badly misunderstood the dimensions of religious iconography, freedom, and the law while running roughshod over the Knights’ rights.

The Commission over-stepped its authority because, without engaging in too detailed of a theological discussion—even if one acknowledges that the relative religious value of a menorah is not equal to that of the Nativity scene—it is noteworthy that, unlike Christianity, Judaism does not allow statutes or other representations of God, it rightly remains an essential symbol of the Jewish faith.

In analysis theologians likely would have avoided, the Commission (giving it the benefit of the doubt it may not deserve) perhaps attempted to demonstrate Solomon-like wisdom in splitting the theological difference involving the menorah and Nativity scene. Instead, the Commission essentially permitted comparisons between Chanukah, the Festival of Lights in Judaism—as important as it is—is not of the same religious significance as the high holy days of Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, with Christmas, one of Christianity’s two major holy days along with Easter.

Even if the Commission had been attempting to be fair, it should have recognized that questions over the meaning of sacred symbols are beyond the scope of its authority because it could engender potential for religious strife by appearing to take sides favoring one faith over the other. Further, the court found that the Commission’s rationale for denying the Knights’ 2020 application was nothing more than a pretext for discrimination.

The Fairfield Commission’s actions were offensive to Catholics in particular and, indeed, to all Christians. Had the Commission carefully crafted a policy on religious displays, it might have survived a challenge from believers whose religious celebrations occur in and around December because Chanukah can occur in November.

Catholics (and other Christians) should ask why the menorah, as significant as it is in commemorating the fight for religious liberty under the leadership of the Maccabees in rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem, could be displayed while the Commission denied the Knights’ request to erect the Nativity where they requested. Rather than create such a controversy, public officials must defend, honor, and safeguard the religious freedom of all in their communities instead of having the courts resolve these thorny questions, likely in favor of the Knights, in allowing their suit to protect their rights to proceed.