When Christmas comes to Lincoln, Nebraska this year, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus will find there is no room in the inner halls of the state capitol – and no manger either.
Instead, there will be an 8ft “happy humanist” next to a “reason tree” dedicated to science and “human intellectual achievement”.
In Lincoln, amid the supposed “war on Christmas” bemoaned each year by the political right, it appears the atheists really have stolen Christmas.
On Friday, a classic Christian nativity scene was erected in the rotunda of Nebraska’s capitol building. The state’s lieutenant governor, Mike Foley, was scheduled to attend.