Proponents of public displays of nativity scenes are taking a pro-active approach for the 2008 holiday season.

Last Thursday, organizers of the Nativity Project placed a display on the sidewalk outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

Their point: That it’s completely legal for private citizens to place religious displays on public sites.

Rev. Rob Schenck is the president of the National Clergy Council, which is a co-sponsor of the Nativity Project.

“This is not only okay, it is to be encouraged,” Schenck said, CBNNews.com reported. “In fact the more we exercise this right the stronger that right becomes in our national life.”

Said Schenck, “Our forefathers made it quite clear that the so-called wall of separation between church and state is a gate, and it’s a one-way gate, and it prohibits the government from interfering with religion or imposing religion. But it does not in anyway prohibit American citizens, churches, congregations, believers, worshippers from bringing their faith out into the public. That’s one of our great freedoms.”

— Tom McFeely