NOTE: I am monitoring the rising tensions with Iran and plan to write on this issue Monday when we know more about this conflict’s implications for the future.
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a forty-foot World War I memorial cross can stay on public land.
The concrete cross is located in the middle of a busy median strip and across from a pawnshop in Bladensburg, Maryland. It was erected nearly a century ago when mothers in the community decided to build a memorial to honor their fallen sons.
When they ran out of money, the American Legion adopted the project. By the 1930s, a local parks commission had taken over the memorial and its maintenance.
The American Humanist Association challenged the placement of the cross, contending that “there is no meaning to the Latin cross, other than Christianity.” A federal appeals court agreed, declaring that its placement on public land violated the Constitution’s ban on the establishment of religion.
The American Legion countered that if the cross had to be moved, so too would other crosses that served as war memorials.
Secularizing the cross
Writing for the seven-to-two majority, Justice Samuel Alito called the cross “a prominent community landmark” and stated that its removal would be seen “not as a neutral act but as the manifestation of a hostility toward religion that has no place in our Establishment Clause traditions.”
Justice Alito argued that the Maryland cross has essentially become secular. He invoked the history of World War I memorials, noting the many rows of crosses and Stars of David at cemeteries that memorialize those who died in that war. In his view, these memorials have been established as a way to honor the dead.
I am grateful that a majority of Supreme Court justices do not want to begin removing crosses from war memorials all across the country. But I am less grateful for their reasoning: these crosses have become so irreligious…
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