Accord Reached on Nativity Scene Issue

San Diego City officials on Friday hammered out an agreement with a private group to expand an exhibit of life-sized Nativity scenes with other religious and holiday symbols so it can be deemed constitutional and displayed at Balboa Park during the 1988 Christmas holidays.

The agreement comes on the heels of a turbulent controversy that began earlier this week when City Atty. John Witt told reporters that the creche--actually eight scenes depicting the birth and life of Jesus--would be banned from the park next year.

Paul E. Schmidt, president of the Community Christmas Center Committee, which owns the creche, said his group has agreed to expand the exhibit with other symbols, starting next week with the addition of a menorah to represent the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

To prepare for further expansion next year, Schmidt said, the committee will meet with the local Ecumenical Council and other religious groups to map out a plan for Christmas, 1988.

“We’re going to discuss these things to see if this can be expanded in good taste,” said Schmidt. “We want it to be a beautiful, meaningful holiday season display that won’t offend anybody.”

Schmidt also said his committee will either begin paying the city for storing the privately-owned exhibit, or will find another place to put it in the off-season. In addition, committee members will arrange to have it erected and taken down each year without the help of city crews.

City Atty. John Witt said Friday the agreement--especially the provision to expand the exhibit to include other religious symbols--will guarantee that the creche will satisfy constitutional provisions and qualify for display at the Organ Pavilion in 1988, just as it has for more than two decades worth of Christmases.

“What I hope we’re going to do is come up with a community Christmas display in Balboa Park that everyone from whatever walk of life will be happy with,” Witt said.

But even as Witt and others lauded the agreement to keep the creche, a representative for local atheists said Friday he would go to court if necessary to keep all religious symbols from public property.

Not Everyone Satisfied

“My viewpoint is that you can’t have Nativity scenes in the park,” said Steve Thorne, president of the San Diego chapter of American Atheists. “I don’t care if you fill the park with pink flamingos, as long as there is a religious display there, there’s a religious display there.

“It’s an official endorsement of Christianity by the City of San Diego,” Thorne said. “If they were to put up Jewish symbols, it would be an official endorsement of Judaism by the City of San Diego.

“And if they were to put up the symbols of any other religion, whether it be a statue of a big goat that was supposed to be Satan or something, we would oppose that as well,” he said. “If it is a religion, it is separate from the state.”

A controversy over the fate of the creche was triggered earlier this week when Witt told reporters that the exhibit would be banned from the park beginning next year because it was unconstitutional.

Witt said his opinion was prompted by inquiries from the Jewish Community Relations Council, the social action arm of the United Jewish Federation. He said the opinion was based on recent U.S. Supreme Court cases that found the use of public property for holiday exhibits featuring the symbols from just one religion is in violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits government from making any laws establishing a religion.

He also said the creche could no longer be stored or erected at public expense.

Angry San Diegans deluged the telephone lines of city offices and local Jewish leaders, who reported at least one bomb threat and dozens of blatantly anti-Semitic messages. And Mayor Maureen O’Connor and City Manager John Lockwood’s offices vowed to find a way to keep the creche a Christmas tradition at Balboa Park.