A pole celebrating the fake holiday Festivus from the TV show “Seinfeld” is the latest installation put up in the Florida Capitol rotunda to protest a nativity scene there. The man behind the Festivus display says it’s all about preserving the separation of church and state.
Deerfield Beach software developer Chaz Stevens put up the 6-foot-tall pole covered in Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans Wednesday morning in the Capitol rotunda.
“We shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here. I like Tallahassee—first time I’ve ever been here. But we shouldn’t be here," he said to reporters. "We shouldn’t be having this conversation. The government needs to stay out of religion—to me, religion’s a very private matter.”
Stevens’ display is next to a Winter Solstice banner put up by the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation. The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has warned the state must accept all holiday displays after allowing the Christian nativity. There may be more displays to come, too. One of the applications pending before the state Department of Management Services is from a group called the Satanic Temple.
