Podcast: What happens when drag-queen culture meets the Christmas Wars? Take a guess ...

Just the other day, someone tweeted out a challenge asking readers to share, in five words or less, something that would annoy die-hard Texans. As a prodigal Texan, I responded: “Austin, Austin, Austin, Austin, Austin.”

You see, the People’s Republic of Austin — I heard that label in the 1970s — is located inside Texas and it is even the capital of Texas, but it has long been deep-blue urban zip code (there are now others) in a rather red state.

This creates tensions. Which brings us to that interesting Christmas Wars headline the other day in The Washington Post: “A Texas culture clash: Dueling parades over the meaning of Christmas,” which was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Let me offer a bit of “Christmas Wars” background. For decades, the most powerful institutions in American life — government, mass media, public schools, shopping malls, etc. — have argued about what kind of language and symbolism can be used during the cultural tsunami known as The Holidays. As one Baptist progressive said long ago, people may want to play it safe and say, "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Joyous Kwanzaa, Martyrdom Day of Guru Tegh Bahadur, Bodhi Day, Maunajiyaras Day, Beginning of Masa'il, Nisf Sha'ban and Yalda Night, Yule and Shinto Winter Solstice, and Ramadan! Or, happy holidays!"

But there is a serious church-state issue looming in the background: Is religious speech and symbolism a uniquely dangerous force in public life? In practical terms, can public institutions — especially if there are tax dollars involved — let “Christmas be Christmas.”

Strange things have happened in these debates, such as some (repeat “SOME”) religious and cultural conservatives celebrating when, let’s say, Menorahs and even Nativity scenes are acceptable since they have become “secular” symbols that no longer have offensive religious content. That’s a win for religion?

With that in mind, let’s look at the overture of this Washington Post story, about Christmas Wars in greater Austin:

TAYLOR, Tex. — The trouble started at last year’s Christmas parade, when students from St. Mary’s Catholic School watched as two drag queens aboard the first Taylor Pride float danced and lip synced to Christmas carols beneath a glittering rainbow arch.

Farewell to 'reindeer rules'? Indiana nativity scene case could have been turning point

Year after year, the Lion's Club sets up wire-frame Christmas decorations on the lawn of the historic Jackson County courthouse, facing Main Street in Brownstown, Ind.

The display, which belongs to the local ministerial alliance, glows from dusk to dawn from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day, with the county providing the electricity.

This led to yet another "Christmas Wars" dispute, with the recent Woodring v. Jackson County court decision offering a precise description of this tableau.

There is a "waving Santa Claus with his sleigh, a reindeer, seven large candy-striped poles, the nativity scene … and four carolers standing in front of a lamp post," noted Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Joan St. Eve. "Santa Claus and the reindeer are on the left. …To their right are three gift-bearing kings (Magi) and a camel, who look upon the nativity. On the right side of the sidewalk, Mary, Joseph, and infant Jesus in the stable are flanked on each side by trumpet-playing angels. To their right are several animals facing the nativity. The carolers stand in front of the animals, closer to Main Street."

Before the 2018 lawsuit, the Freedom From Religion Foundation warned that the nativity scene needed to come down. County officials responded by moving Santa and other secular symbols closer to the telltale manger.

That move was clearly linked to what activists call the "reindeer rules," in which secular and sacred symbols are mixed to honor guidelines from the Supreme Court's Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971. The "Lemon test" asks if a government action's primary effect advanced religion, as opposed to a secular purpose, thus entangling church and state.

But the majority in the new 2-1 decision in Indiana argued that the "nativity scene is constitutional because it fits within a long national tradition of using the nativity scene in broader holiday displays to celebrate the origins of Christmas."

This post-Christmas decision in the heartland may have been a turning point.

"To the degree that the reindeer rules were based on Lemon, this decision said that we now have a new Supreme Court precedent. The reindeer rules appear to be gone," said Diana Verm, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed a brief in the case.