(Piedmont, AL)—Piedmont, Alabama, is a typical small American town located about 70 miles from Atlanta. With a population of roughly 5,000 people, it's mainly a conservative, middle-class manufacturing and construction labor community. Most of its citizens are Christians. (Photo via WBMA)

An average rural American town, but one with a big, fierce heart, as evidenced recently after the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation notified Piedmont officials that their "Keep Christ in Christmas" annual parade was "unconstitutional."

Said Piedmont Mayor Bill Baker, "It was a great theme. I was totally shocked when I received the letter. It's a small town. It's a small Christmas parade. [They told us to find a] more appropriate, more inclusive, and constitutional theme. They thought they were going to ruin our Christmas parade, but they wound up making it better than ever."

Writing for Fox News, commentator Todd Starnes explains what happened next, noting that the prayer controversy before football games earlier in the year is one of the reasons why the parade committee wanted to make a specific faith statement during this year's Christmas parade in the first place.

"The folks around Piedmont are not the kind of folks who back away from a fight," continued Starnes, and "while they agreed to not officially have a [Christian] parade theme—the city decided to keep Christmas by marching with signs reading "Let's Keep Christ in Christmas."

And that, they did. Big time. In fact, Mayor Baker was quoted as saying this year's Christmas parade was the largest ever in the city's history.

"There are people in there wearing t-shirts that are of a religious nature," he noted. "It just went crazy, out of sight, in a positive way, and I'm so excited. This religious group that started all this stuff, I really believe this has backfired on them... They have caused our parade to be bigger and better with more emphasis placed on Christianity." (Photo via WBMA)

A CBS Atlanta station even carried the story, showing Christians out in the parade in force with their signs.

Said parade-goer Harold Martin: "If we stick together like this, all the good Christian people will stick together and lift up the name of Jesus Christ, and not let these atheists and non-believers scare us like they do, it will be a better world."

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Source: www.breakingchristiannews.com/