For 40 years, Michigan’s Newaygo Elementary School has celebrated Christmas with a display of three wise men riding camels atop the school’s roof, but this year anti-religious crusaders demanded officials dismantle the display.

Instead, the Newaygo Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously at a special meeting Monday to stick to its values and tradition, despite legal threats from the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists.

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“We asked the school to remove what is in essence a nativity scene, from the top of the school, and from school property,” Mitch Kahle, spokesman for the group, told Fox 17. “If this were on private property it wouldn’t be an issue.”

Locals contend it’s not an issue for anyone by Kahle, who wrote a letter to the district superintendent, Peg Thelen Mathis, demanding the change.

“Look away if it offends you,” parent Michael Burns said to WOOD.

“It’s not overtly religious,” local Wayne Kauffman added. “It’s appropriate and it’s one that we’ve enjoyed as a community for many years.”

Board members conferred about the issue in closed session before rejecting MACRA’s demands to roaring applause.

“This board has no desire to remove the display,” Board President Vince Grodus said.

The board did grant Mathis authority to modify the display to comply with the law, if necessary, though Mathis told The Daily Caller there’s currently no changes planned.

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“This community has said loud and clear even before tonight’s meeting that they want the display to stay,” Mathis said.

She also defended the display on Facebook, where she noted there’s no law against displaying three non-Christian Middle-Eastern men on camels seeking wisdom, Fox 17 reports.

“Newaygo Public Schools has a legitimate secular purpose for the display. We are both upholding the community’s tradition of celebrating a public holiday and attempting to point towards the importance of wisdom, knowledge, and open-mindedness,” she wrote.

“They’ve been described as scientists of their time. The ‘wise men’ are found in secular and other religious traditions outside of Christianity. Finally, there is no evidence that they were Jewish or Christian before their travels and there is nothing noted in the Christian Bible to indicate anything about any religion they practiced after their travels.”

Newaygo resident Sandy Emmerick runs Market 41 antique shop that overlooks the display, and she told Fox 17 she’s glad it’s there to stay.

“I’m a Christian and this is our little town in Newaygo, and we enjoy it,” she said.

Barbara Boelkins, another local, also supported the move push back against the MACRA.

“The symbols of Christianity and Christ’s birth mean a lot to me and to other people who are believers,” she said. “So I’m glad to stand up and say, ‘Leave it alone.’”

The display in Newaygo is just the latest in a long line of complaints from the MACRA, which works closely with Wisconsin’s Freedom From Religion Foundation to eradicate all references to religion from public life.

MACRA has challenged prayer at community college graduations, ended Bible studies at schools, forced a community to remove a Bible verse in a park, and spearheaded a campaign to dismantle a large cross that had stood for over seven decades in West Michigan.

FFRF threatens litigation to force similar changes in schools and other public buildings across the country.

A MACRA spokesman told The Daily Caller via Facebook messenger that the organization is withholding public comment about the situation in Newaygo until it receives a formal response from the school district.