The newly formed New Hampshire Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation has returned a display honoring the Winter Solstice and the Bill of Rights for the eighth year in a row to the state Capitol grounds.

The whimsical 6-foot-tall display is set up outside the Capitol building in Concord. The irreverent depicts Founders Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington kneeling adoringly before a “baby” Bill of Rights in a manger.

The tongue-in-cheek nativity reads:

At this Season of the Winter Solstice
Join us in honoring the Bill of Rights, adopted on December 15, 1791, which reminds us there can be no religious freedom without the freedom to dissent.
Keep religion and government separate!

“All Americans can revere our Bill of Rights and feel united by its pluralistic and secular principles,” comments FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “This sign also acknowledges the Winter Solstice, celebrated for millennia in the Northern hemisphere with gift-giving, feasts, gift exchange and festivals of light long before Christians crashed the party.”

Barker points out that the religiously unaffiliated, including 19 percent who are atheist or agnostic, make up 48 percent of New Hampshire adults, outnumbering Christians at 45 percent.

The display went up on November 30 and will remain up through December. FFRF thanks the New Hampshire chapter, including Chapter President Ed Killam and other chapter members (pictured above).

FFRF is a national nonprofit organization with more than 41,000 members across the country, including hundreds of members in New Hampshire. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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