• Vandals draw Hitler mustache on baby Jesus in nativity scene

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    By Janet Kwak and Jason Kandel, NBCLosAngeles.com

    Police on Sunday were searching for the person or people responsible for vandalizing Nativity scenes at a Catholic church and a home in a Southern California city.

    Someone misspelled "Hail (sic) Hitler" and drew a Hitler mustache on the baby Jesus outside a home in Huntington Beach, police said.

    They also put a Nazi symbol on one of the wise men with a black pen.

    Homeowner Richard Candlish reported it to police and cleaned up the scene he said he spent a month putting up.

    "It probably took less than 15 minutes for someone just to deface all of it," he said.

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    The case followed another one in which similar scrawlings were found about three blocks away on a Nativity scene at Saint Bonaventure Catholic Parish.

    Parishoners reported the vandalism to the police.

    Parishoner Max Periolat, 10, said he was offended.

    "Who would do such a thing?" he said. "If I saw them I would give them a whopper."

    Police said they were investigating.

  • Goat on the lam since Christmas Eve found safe

    By Sylvia Wood, msnbc.com

    A longhaired goat that ran away from a Minnesota nativity scene on Christmas Eve is finally back home after being on the lam for 25 days.

    The errant animal, named Curley, turned herself in when she wandered onto the farm owned by Tony Loomer and family, near Fergus Falls, Minn.

    Loomer told msnbc.com that he had gone down to the barn around 4 p.m. Wednesday to feed his daughter’s horse and some goats when he noticed a stranger among the herd.  

    “As I came around the corner, she was just standing there,” Loomer said. “It took me a minute to realize it was the goat.”

    The naughty nanny goat had built up quite a reputation among area residents ever since she slipped out of her leash while taking part in a nativity scene in front of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church on Christmas Eve.

    Over the past three weeks, there had been numerous sightings of the animal, no doubt encouraged by $250 in reward money donated by concerned citizens.

    With Curley's penchant for running away when chased, Loomer said he was careful in how he approached her, putting down some food before grabbing the goat's horns and getting her into the barn.

    “She was hungry, cold and wet and froze,” he said, noting that the animal had to have crossed an interstate and a river to get to his family’s property, located about four miles from the church.

    With Curley safely back in the barn where she couldn’t escape, Loomer and his wife called the animal's owners, Jim and Karen Aakre, who were relieved Curley had been found.

    “She was almost in tears,” he said of Karen Aakre.

    While Loomer may be eligible for the reward money, he says he’s just glad to have helped.

    “We’re going to donate it to the church,” he said.

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  • Atheists ramp up message for the holidays: Humbug!

    Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

    A passerby looks at a display of an Atheist message along Ocean Avenue at Palisades Park in Santa Monica, Calif. on Tuesday. Most of the Christmas nativity scenes that local churches had placed in the park during the holiday season in the past were displaced this year by non-believers. Churches were allotted two of the 21 display sites, and one went to Isaac Levitansky of Chabad Channukah Menorah.

    By msnbc.com staff and wires

    In Santa Monica’s Palisades Park this Christmas season, the baby Jesus had to make space for others at the inn — nonbelievers.

    This year, all but a few of the 21 display spaces in the park that have housed Nativity scenes for nearly six decades were claimed for atheist displays.

    Just as the winter season is a time when major religions to trumpet their beliefs, it is also a time when atheists spend extra energy pushing back against the influence of religion in public life, especially in government.

     In Leesburg, Va., an atheist display depicting a skeleton in a Santa suit nailed to a cross caused a ruckus. The nonprofit American Atheists is putting up seasonal billboards calling for atheists to go public with their beliefs. And a group in Utah is taking the message to the heart of Mormonism.

    “Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies,” reads a banner in one of the Santa Monica displays, quoting Thomas Jefferson.

    There the holiday display sites are made available through an application process run by the city. This year, applications outnumbered displays for the first time, said Barbara Stinchfield, director of community and cultural services. She said that an atheist group got nine spaces, and another group laid claim to nine for "Christmas spirit and solstice decoration."

    "For 60 years, it's almost exclusively been the point of view of Christians putting up Nativity scenes for a whole city block," said Damon Vix, who helped the nonprofits American Atheists and Freedom From Religion Foundation populate the display spaces.

    The outcome, resulting in a two-block stretch of displays that are not primarily Christian-themed for the first time, sparked a stream of email and calls from the public, said Stinchfield.

    "Most (people who inquire) are just confused about what happened, and we try to clear it up by informing of the restrictions we have, and the rights individuals have under the First Amendment," she said.

    'Coming out' as atheist
    Also this week, the American Atheists launched the second in a series of seasonal billboards that calls for atheists to go public with their beliefs during festivities with their families this holiday season: “Tell your family you don’t believe in gods… they just might agree.” The message, displayed on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel into New York City, is accompanied by pictures of Jesus and Poseidon.

    American Atheists, born out of an early court challenge to prayer in school, advocates for the civil liberties of atheists and the absolute separation of government and religion.

    The nonprofit organization Freedom from Religion Foundation brings its holiday greetings to Mormon-dominated Salt Lake City with new billboards declaring "Reason's Greetings" to passersby and another with a stained-glass motif asking its viewers to "Imagine no Religion,"-- a reference to the John Lennon song.

    ffrf.org

    One of the messages from the Freedom from Religion Foundation in a national billboard campaign that started in 2007.

    "We want the nonreligious — freethinkers, atheists, agnostics and other skeptics — in Utah to know they are not alone,” says Dan Barker, a former evangelical minister who now co-directs FFRF on the groups' Web site.

    Another theme for the group is to remind people of "the real reason for the season — the Winter Solstice, a ‘natural holiday,’ said Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co--president.

    Insulted believers
    Another atheist display, depicting a skeleton in a Santa suit nailed to a cross, msnbc.com reported last week, caused a kerfuffle in Leesburg Va., msnbc.com reported last week. The macabre Santa was one of nine displays allowed on the grounds of the Loudon County courthouse, most of them with more traditional Christmas tableaus.

    "I think that it's just extremely, extremely sad," Leesburg council member Ken Reid was quoted as saying, "that somebody in this county who would try to basically debase Christmas like this. This really crossed the line."

    The display didn't survive long. Someone tore the skeleton down by Monday night sparking renewed debate about free speech.

    In 2009, Christmas displays on the courthouse lawn were banned after the constitutionality of a Nativity scene was questioned. Last year that decision was overturned and 10 displays were allowed on the lawn based on a first-come, first-served basis.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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