Christmas icons are all over public property, a sign of the times.

For decades, it was common practice for the City of Monterey to set up a nativity scene at Colton Hall. According to news reports in the 1990s, city officials moved it to a Catholic Church – clearly a better place for a religious display that depicts the story of Jesus’ birth – to avoid a legal dispute.

But then in 1990 they moved it back to the public square, prompting the lawsuit they knew would come. Victor Ringel, then a 13-year-old Jewish resident, joined an Episcopal priest, two Unitarian ministers and others in suing the city. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, they argued that by appearing to endorse Christianity, the city was violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment which prohibits government from endorsing a religion – the flipside of allowing people to freely practice any religion. (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion… ”)

Two days after Christmas, the City lost the lawsuit. The nativity scene has long since become a thing of the past.

But there is still a Christmas tree and a public lighting ceremony on the Colton Hall lawn every winter. This year, there are angels from the city’s archive, newly restored and displayed.

These are arguably secular symbols, in keeping with legal precedent. “Although Christmas trees once carried religious connotations, today they typify the secular celebration of Christmas,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989.

Some people find that argument lacking, such as Rabbi Dovid Holtzberg. He moved to the area and created Chabad of Monterey in 2003, shortly after the Ringel case. He approached city officials to ask about setting up a menorah for Hanukkah at Fisherman’s Wharf or another public area, and remembers an attorney showing him a stack of legal documents from the nativity suit to say: No chance. “That’s why we do it at Del Monte Center, on private grounds,” Holtzberg says. “I didn’t want to start a whole war.”

Meanwhile, he watched as every year, a Christmas tree lights up – in keeping with the Supreme Court’s determination.

“They say it’s not a religious symbol but it’s not right,” Holtzberg says. “Who are you fooling by saying it’s not? It’s definitely a religious symbol.”

I asked attorney Michelle Welsh about these other symbols, even if the Supreme Court hasn’t taken a position (angels) or has decided they are secular (trees). Welsh represented the plaintiffs in the nativity scene case, and still serves on the board of the Monterey County chapter of the ACLU and the legal committee for its Northern California region, as well as teaching constitutional law at Monterey County College of Law.

“I think those angels could be interpreted as art, rather than religion. I can also see an argument to be made that putting them up just at Christmastime appears to connect the intent to aggrandize religion and Christian religion in general,” Welsh says. “These days, I do not think that argument would prevail in the court.”

Not just in culture but in law, Welsh is observing a tilt to embrace religious (specifically Christian) symbols in government spaces. The court’s interpretations of the Establishment Clause today seem to be tailormade to allow public institutions to endorse Christianity. (See, for example, cases that uphold the right to obligate schools to display the Ten Commandments.)

Compared to 1990, Welsh says the pendulum has swung far to the right on the separation of church and state, and civil liberties more broadly. “I see this as a large trend, people not really caring,” Welsh says. “It is cause for concern. I wonder if there’s going to be a swinging back of the pendulum – as things become more and more invasive of privacy and other civil liberties, people may begin to notice.”

Whether the angels are iconography or art is an easy argument. In choosing to restore them, Brian Edwards, Monterey’s library and museums director, says he was emphasizing art, not theology, and expects they will be perceived as art.

He is not religious, he adds, but Christmas now extends beyond religion: “It’s a federal holiday too. This is not something where we say, you have to celebrate Jesus Christ.”

Maybe that’s the real issue – that the default federal (secular) holiday aligns with a Christian (religious) holiday, failing the most basic church/state test.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.