On California coast, atheists nudge out Nativity scenes..

 Every Christmas for the past 60 years, Nativity scenes have dominated two blocks of a park on bluffs overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica, California.
The 14 scenes depicting Jesus Christ's birth have long been a popular attraction among area residents and tourists to the southern California city.
This year, however, atheists have taken over most of the two-block stretch, nearly shutting out and angering a group of churches who contend the atheists have organized against the Christians and gamed a city lottery process allocating the holiday exhibit space.
In response, a leader of the atheist group says he's just looking for evenhanded treatment to present his beliefs in a public space -- and goes so far as to say that the city shouldn't even be allowing any religious or even atheist expression in the park.
That's why he and his group have put nothing on half of the park exhibit spaces that they've secured from the city this year.
The atheists are declaring the politically left-leaning seaside town of Santa Monica as their latest battleground in a national movement to assert their rights.
"I'm part of a growing movement in America of atheists standing up for their rights. It's a very exciting time for us that we're having more of an impact in our society," said Damon Vix, the organizer of the atheist group.
"I'm a civil rights activist, and atheists have been discriminated against for as long as I've been an atheist -- since high school," added Vix, 43, a freelance prop maker who lives in Burbank, California.
But Hunter Jameson, the Nativity scene committee chairman representing 14 Santa Monica groups that are mostly churches, said the church members are now planning to petition the city in 2012 to change the process so that creches would be better represented on the park bluffs adjacent to downtown Santa Monica.
"There's a very militant atheist movement that's trying to drive out vestiges of the truth. They're trying to deny the truth that this nation is founded on Christian principles," Jameson said.
"These people, atheists, a number of them, like Mr. Vix, are bound and determined to drive away from any public place any manifestation that Americans are God-loving people," Jameson added. "This is not fair, this is not just."
The atheists group won from the city 18 of the 21 exhibit spaces -- leaving only two plots to the Christian churches and one to a rabbi erecting a Menorah scene. The venue is Palisades Park, with vistas of the Santa Monica Pier and, in the distance, the coastal mountains of Malibu.
"We don't object to them being there. We just object to them manipulating the rules, to try to deprive us of our freedom of speech," Jameson said. "You add everything together, there would be enough room in the two blocks to take care of all the displays. It's a matter of portioning the space fairly, and we are undertaking a petition drive."
Caught in the middle of the dispute are city officials, who say the lottery process is governed under federal law, and there's nothing they can do about this year's results.