The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark religious liberty decision Thursday and let stand a 94-year-old cross-shaped war memorial that was at the center of a dispute between an atheist group and a veterans organization.
The court, in a 7-2 decision, ruled the 40-foot Bladensburg WWI Veterans Memorial – often called the Peace Cross – does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It sits on public property in Bladensburg, Md., and was completed in 1925.
The justices did not overturn the so-called Lemon Test as requested by some religious liberty groups but did issue a new set of principles that could protect other historic religious-themed monuments from lawsuits.
“The cross is undoubtedly a Christian symbol, but that fact should not blind us to everything else that the Bladensburg Cross has come to represent,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. “For some, that monument is a symbolic resting place for ancestors who never returned home. For others, it is a place for the community to gather and honor all veterans and their sacrifices for our Nation. For others still, it is a historical landmark.”
Tearing down the cross, Alito wrote, could be viewed as an unconstitutional hostile act toward religion.
“For many of these people, destroying or defacing the Cross that has stood undisturbed for nearly a…
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