Oregon City Manager Wins Ebenezer Award for 2000

Dec 22, 2000

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty today bestowed its annual "Ebenezer Award" for the year 2000 to Jim Johnson, the city manager in Eugene, Oregon. Johnson won the award for issuing a five page single-spaced memo laying down the law on Christmas trees in Eugene: they're banned entirely from any "public space" in the city.

The Ebenezer Award is given each year to the individual responsible for the silliest affront to the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays. The Award itself is a special Christmas stocking filled with lumps of coal. Becket Fund President and General Counsel Kevin J. Hasson said that Johnson was this year's hands-down choice for the Ebenezer Award. "The Easter Bunny had better watch out," Hasson said.

"Mr. Johnson is clearly a zealot on a mission. And if Christmas trees are too religious, the Easter Bunny must be almost sacred. Come to think of it, what's Johnson going to do on February 14? Will city employees be allowed to send love notes in honor of St. Valentine? And what about March 17? Will people be allowed to wear green in honor of St. Patrick? Eugene could be a very boring place by the time Johnson's through."

The Becket Fund has successfully defended local government holiday displays containing creches, menorahs and other religious symbols in federal courts around the country. Earlier this year, it won such a case on behalf of Wall Township, New Jersey in U.S. District Court, and won another before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1999 on behalf of Jersey City. This week, The Becket Fund successfully defended the designation of Christmas as a federal holiday in a case decided by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and recently offered to defend several New York City public schools that had allowed Muslim students a few minutes each day to say prayers for Ramadan.