The Tuesday night vote followed weeks of passionate debate among the five council members, as well as members of the community.

Deputy Mayor Frank Gambatese and Councilwoman Carol Barrett joined lone Republican Councilman Ted Van Hessen in opposing the resolution.

Barrett and Gambatese both read prepared statements explaining their change of position.

Barrett said she decided that having the displays without offending any of the residents was not possible.

"I originally wanted decorations," Barrett said, but "if I find an issue is divisive, especially on an issue that is supposed to bring happiness, then I must vote against holiday displays."

Gambatese said that he has struggled with the issue, and that most of the people he has talked with were neutral.

"They wonder what all the fuss is about," Gambatese said.

Gambatese said that he was saddened by the local clergy.

"I have learned from most of our religious leaders that they are more concerned about divisiveness than about teaching respect and tolerance. That saddens me deeply," Gambatese said.

Gambatese concluded by saying that he would vote no on the resolution because of his "desire to avoid a Pandora’s box of legal entanglements."

Mayor Debra Johnson and Councilman Edmund Luciano voted to permit the displays.

"I’m not sure how this became a religious issue," Johnson said, adding that she was concerned about "what we will lose" in defeating the displays.

According to Johnson, such township events as the Haunted Halloween trail and the annual Kwanzaa celebration may be threatened by the policy.

Township Attorney Bertram Busch said that the resolution’s defeat leaves the secular display policy set late last year in place.

The council decided to look at the issue after it received a petition from 60 seniors at the township’s Senior Center asking to have a holiday tree last December.

Such displays have been banned in the township since 1998.

The township decided to ban the displays following a federal court’s ruling that such displays were unconstitutional.

A different panel of that same Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision last year, upholding a diversity display in Jersey City.

Members of the local clergy and the township’s Human Relations Commission both feel that the displays should not be allowed on public property, but should be left to individuals and businesses to erect.

In response to the seniors’ petition, the council voted to overturn the ban in December allowing secular winter displays, including snowflakes, candy canes and snowmen.

Council vowed at that time to look at the issue again.

Council members strongly debated the new resolution during a February work session, but put off a vote during the next regular meeting.

At that meeting, Barrett and Gambatese said that they favored the resolution, but promised that they would study it prior to voting.

Van Hessen said that he used to favor such displays, but had changed his mind on the issue.

A majority of residents speaking during the public session asked the council to vote the resolution down.

Human relations Committee member Martin Abschutz reported that the commission is still opposed to allowing the displays.

"We don’t want South Brunswick to be another case to come before the courts," Abschutz said.

Abschutz said the commission feels that individuals should be the ones to erect any displays and that the churches should be open for people to become educated in different religious cultures.

"Government does not have to do it for us," he said.

Gwen Southgate said that any kind of display would create a crack in the separation of church and state.

"It is a slippery slope," Southgate said, adding that she found the discussion "really scary" on how the wall representing the separation between church and state is eroding.

"We are sliding very rapidly toward a de facto religion," she said.

Speaking for the resolution, resident Paul Kessler said that the seniors who initially signed a petition to request that the council allow holiday decorations at the Senior Center did so because it was the first time they were prohibited from having a display.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Kessler presented a second petition with 128 names in support of allowing a decorated tree at the center.

"We request that our annual holiday tree and trimmings be returned," he said.

Kessler said that the petition had signatures from a diverse group of people and that the center was decorated during many different holidays representing a diverse population.

"There was no culture cut out," he said.