Does a War-Memorial Cross Violate the Establishment Clause?

[Wingnut]

Oral arguments about the Maryland public memorial start this week.
By THOMAS R. ASCIK
About Thomas R. Ascik
February 25, 2019 6:30 AM

Must a large Christian cross commemorating soldiers who died in World War I, which has been in place on public land for 94 years, be taken down because three people are offended by it? On February 27, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the companion cases American Legion v. American Humanist Association and Maryland–National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist Association. The constitutional issue concerns the allegation that the commemorative cross in Bladensburg, Md., which is located on a heavily traveled public highway and is known locally as the “Peace Cross,” violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The specific question for the Supreme Court is whether the continued maintenance of the Peace Cross is an act of government that “endorses” religion and “coerces” religious belief, or if, instead, the cross is a “passive display” that may continue to exist as a commemoration of war dead and as part of American public tradition. The briefs filed for and against the Peace Cross cite Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), in addition to four recent cases, all decided by 5–4 votes: three recent Supreme Court cases about similar religious monuments and one case about public prayer.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/peace-cross-supreme-court-case-establishment-clause-2/

a long indepth, but good read.

[Elderberry]

Argument analysis: Peace cross appears safe, if not stable

http://amylhowe.com/2019/02/27/argument-analysis-peace-cross-appears-safe-if-not-stable/

For nearly a century, a 40-foot-tall stone and concrete cross has stood on a traffic median in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, just a few miles from the Supreme Court. But seven years ago, a group of local residents filed a lawsuit seeking to have the cross removed. They argue that the presence of the cross on public land violates the Constitution, which bars the government from establishing an official religion and favoring one religion over another. The state of Maryland, which owns and maintains the cross, and the American Legion, which built it, counter that the cross – which is badly in need of repair – is simply a secular war memorial. Today the justices heard oral argument in the dispute, and it seemed likely that the cross will survive the challenge, even if the court’s ruling proves to be a relatively narrow one that allows the peace cross and other historical monuments to stand while making clear that new religious symbols may not pass muster in the future.

The cross was dedicated in 1925 in Bladensburg, Maryland, as a memorial to the 49 soldiers from the area who were killed during World War I. A plaque at the bottom of the cross contains the names of those soldiers, as well as a quote from President Woodrow Wilson; smaller memorials commemorating other conflicts – from the War of 1812 to the September 11 attacks – are nearby.

A federal district court ruled for the state and the American Legion. In its view, the state’s ownership and maintenance of the cross do not violate the Constitution because the state has been primarily concerned with maintaining traffic safety and honoring veterans, rather than promoting religion.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit reversed. To determine whether the cross violates the establishment clause, the court of appeals applied a test from the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which focuses on whether a law or practice has a secular purpose, whether its principal effect advances religion, and whether the law or practice creates an “excessive entanglement with religion.” In this case, the court of appeals reasoned, the average person would think that the cross is intended to endorse religion because the cross dominates the other war memorials in the vicinity and has long represented Christianity.

The American Legion and the state asked the Supreme Court to weigh in, which it agreed to do last fall. At today’s oral argument, lawyer Neal Katyal – who represented the state – emphasized that the cross has stood in its current location for nearly all its history without any challenge. And both Katyal and Jeffrey Wall, the deputy U.S. solicitor general, who argued as a “friend of the court” on behalf of the state and the American Legion, stressed two other themes. First, as in the Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, which upheld a New York town’s practice of beginning its town council meetings with a prayer offered by members of the clergy, there is a long tradition of displaying crosses. Second, in this particular context the cross has a unique and secular meaning, because it is closely associated with World War I and, more broadly, with “sacrifice and death,” as Wall put it.

Katyal and Wall faced significant pushback from three of the court’s more liberal justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was incredulous at the idea that there was a long tradition of crosses in public places, telling Wall that “I don’t know of a Founding Father, town or state that put a 40-foot cross on government property.” To the contrary, she noted, “a lot of Founding Fathers, including George Washington,” were “exceedingly careful to ensure that references to God were as neutral as possible to as many religions as possible.”

Justice Elena Kagan repeatedly resisted the idea that the cross can have a secular meaning, telling Wall that the cross “invokes the central theological claim of Christianity that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross for humanity’s sins and that he rose from the dead.”

More at link

[Axeslinger]

Those “seven local residents” should be knee-capped late one night.

That’s why we lose.  They use our system against us while we hope and pray that some folks in black robes woke up on the right side of the bed today.