Debate is stirring in Loudon County, Virginia over a Christmas display.

The Board of Supervisors overturned a committee decision to ban all displays on courthouse property and was then asked to place a Christmas tree on county property. That brought a flood of requests from other groups including atheists and an individual representing an organization that wanted to set up a filthy parody of the “12 Days of Christmas.”

Mat Staver, head of the Liberty Council and dean of the Liberty University Law School, says, “Clearly I think it’s constitutional for the government, whether it’s the courthouse or city hall, to display a nativity scene, Santa Claus, reindeer and a Christmas tree, and by doing so, you don’t open up a forum so that you have to let every other symbol or message on the property.” He further contends that “Christmas is a federal and state holiday, and it’s certainly appropriate for our governmental structures and facilities to acknowledge and honor Christmas, both the secular and clearly the religious aspects of Christmas.”

County supervisors are now posed with the challenge of deciding what can and cannot be allowed according to whether or not the displays meet constitutional tests. There are currently seven individuals or organizations which have applied for use of the courthouse grounds for some form of holiday display. The exhibits range from the traditional nativity scenes and Christmas trees to all-inclusive religious display and an atheistic banner which counters the religious arrangements. It reads, “At This Season of Winter Solstice, May Reason Prevail,” and goes on to suggest that gods, devils, angels, heaven, hell, and religion are myths and superstitions which “harden hearts and enslave minds.”

A Windsor Terrace grocery store manager came under fire from customers for installing and promptly removing a menorah and a Christmas tree he had placed in front of his store. For the second year in a row, Key Food manager Mike Jordings allowed Rabbi Moshe Hecht to put a 10-foot tall menorah in front of his Prospect Avenue store during Hanukkah. But by the third night of the Festival of Lights, complaints about the Jewish icon were getting intense. “I was trying to be festive, but my everyday customers didn’t feel that way,” he told the Daily News. “They felt uncomfortable.”

So Jording did what any rational business owner would do — he put up a Christmas tree beside it. But that didn’t stop the complaints from customers, who went so far as threatening to vandalize his store if he didn’t remove the Hanukkah symbol. That left him with only one choice — taking down both holiday decorations. “I heard complaints both ways — about the menorah and the tree,” he told The Brooklyn Paper. “That’s why I took them both down. I’m a supermarket, not a religion.”

But when he removed the menorah, Rabbi Hecht called him out in a letter on an online community group: “We are extremely disappointed by the manager’s decision and more dismayed by the apparent lack of neighborly respect for our holiday celebration. It would be very helpful for everyone to personally speak with the manager, Mike Jording.” While anti-Semitism remains a heated issue in Windsor Terracethe Times notes that “Mr. Jording was no longer the main target.” For his part, Jording says he has figured out a way to avoid controversy next holiday season—”You’re not going to see any religious symbols outside the store next year”—though he later hedged to the Daily News that he might bring them back.