BROOKVILLE, Ind. -- Jesus, Mary and Joseph? How about Jefferson, Monroe and Jay?
The Tri-State Freethinkers created a "secular nativity display next to the Franklin County Courthouse, which featured some of the U.S. founding fathers gazing at the Bill of Rights in a manger.
The display went up this weekend after Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation won a legal battle that granted the land next to the courthouse to be used as an open forum, free for all forms of expression.
"The reason we chose the Bill of Rights is because Dec. 15 is when the Bill of Rights was ratified," said Jim Helton, who helped put o the display. "It gave us freedom of speech and it gave us freedom from religion."
Although the county commissioner said he hasn't received any negative complaints about the display, some spectators weren't happy to see it.
"I know it's a given right in the United State to speak your mind, but I just do not agree with it at all," said Henry Rose of Milan, Indiana. "And that's just my right.
"There is an irony here. They're trying to make themselves look patriotic, but our founding fathers believed in prayer and believed that God was overseeing the founding of our country and that's what I believe in."
