Denver, USA - Christian themes, the Salvation Army and a flotilla of carolers will be part of the new look of next December's iconic holiday extravaganza, the Parade of Lights.
The new rules overturn a longstanding policy to bar religious themes from the Christmas season parade, which thrust the event into a national debate last year over whether religion was being chased out of American public life.
"This has been a marvelous event for downtown Denver for 30 years, and we believe it's going to be even better with these changes," said Jim Basey, chairman of the 2005 parade committee, during a Monday news conference.
Under new rules, up to two of the current 40 parade floats will have themes that "acknowledge the season's religious significance," Basey said.
The parade will feature carolers singing Christmas and other holiday songs.
There will be a processional of up to 200 marchers, with no more than 50 from any one religious group.
And the Salvation Army has been invited to bring its bell ringers to collect money for the poor.
For years, the televised, one-hour parade has been strictly secular, featuring floats with Santas and snowmen and colorful holiday marchers. The parade is sponsored with private money by the Downtown Denver Partnership, a coalition of 350 businesses.
Then last year, Arvada pastor George Morrison of the 4,000-member megachurch, Faith Bible Chapel, inquired about entering a multicultural float that depicted Christmas as Christ's birthday.
The organizers said no, and the resulting publicity thrust Morrison and the parade into the national spotlight. The pastor said he received nearly 500 supportive e-mails and was featured on 25 talk shows, including Fox's Bill O'Reilly and -CNN's Paula Zahn.
Parade officials responded by inviting Morrison to help them revise the policy. The pastor agreed and brought along a coalition of religious leaders.
On Monday, Morrison joined Basey for the announcement and praised the partnership's willingness to be open to religious themes.
"Hopefully we'll come up with something that will be pleasing to everybody," Morrison said.
He said he's raised enough money from various religious groups to develop a float, which costs in the range of $40,000.
He said the groups include "a significant amount" of the local Christian community, including most evangelical churches; the Colorado Council of Churches, which represents mainline Protestantism, and the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver.
"It's a go," Morrison said. "It's just a matter of putting the details together. We know it takes money and sponsorship and we're willing to step up to the plate."
Rabbi Eliot Baskin of the Rocky Mountain Rabbinical Council, who also worked with the committee that drafted the new policies, said some people in the Jewish community might participate in developing an interfaith float, which would celebrate the season as "the festival of lights." That's also the theme of Hanukkah, which is celebrated in December.
However, Baskin said Jewish participation might be limited because the two-day parade begins on Friday evening, the start of the Jewish Sabbath.
He said he's especially pleased the parade adopted the notion of "mitzvah," or doing good deeds. By adding the Salvation Army's money-collection component, "the season of getting gets turned into the season of giving."
Basey said while it's impossible to tell how many applications there will be, Morrison's application will likely be among the winners.
"I'd be very surprised if it's not included, given all the work his group has put into this," Basey said. Basey was also firm about one group that would not be welcome - the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which represents atheists, agnostics and secular humanists who believe religion should be barred or sharply curtailed in public settings.
After the parade controversy erupted, spokesman Robert Tiernan said he would demand to be included in the parade, too.
"I'd like to put this question to bed," Basey said. "We're not including any organization choosing to use the parade as a place to argue about religion in the public square. We're within our rights to do that as a private parade."
The parade uses no public money.