Can a cross be anything but a religious symbol?
On February 27, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association, a case involving a 40-foot tall cross erected nearly 100 years ago in Bladensburg, Maryland, as part of a memorial park to veterans. The Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission took over the memorial, including the cross, and spent money to repair and maintain the cross and set aside funds in 2008 to continue renovations. Individuals living nearby took offense to the cross on public land because they felt it showed government affiliation with Christianity. The American Humanist Association joined them in a suit asserting that the religious display and use of government funds to maintain it was a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. A district court decided that the cross did not violate the Establishment Clause, but the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision. The Supreme Court will now decide whether the cross-shaped memorial violates the Establishment Clause and what test it must use to make this determination. I had the honor of representing the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) at a rally in front of the court during oral arguments and shared the following remarks:
NCJW is a 125 year old progressive grassroots organization of 90,000 members and supporters across the country who advocate against measures weakening the separation between religion and state and work to ensure that taxpayer dollars never fund discrimination.
For over a century, we have fought for the religious freedom guaranteed to us in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. We know first-hand the importance of the constitutional guarantee that, throughout American history, has kept the government from imposing one religion or one set of religious beliefs on everyone.
Yet, the Bladensburg cross sends a strong message of government endorsement of the Christian religion. It’s a 40 foot cross. It certainly does not honor the 3,500 Jewish soldiers who died in World War I and the countless other soldiers of all faith groups — or of no faith — who have died in service since. While NCJW honors the 49 soldiers who gave their lives, the cross — a religious display — and use of government funds to maintain it is a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
By enshrining — or attempting to enshrine — any one religion, the government unconstitutionally infringes on the free exercise of religion. It is because of the First Amendment that religion has so freely flourished in this country.
This case is also a reminder of the importance of the federal courts and the judges who sit on them for lifetime appointments.
Federal courts — from district to circuit to the Supreme Court — are the backstop for the constitutional rights that we hold dear, from religious liberty, to reproductive rights to voting rights and beyond.
Religious freedom has been misapplied as an excuse for withholding contraception from women, refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, or just recently, denying a Muslim inmate the right to be with his spiritual advisor in the execution chamber in Alabama.
Today, we’re here to say #HonorThemAll!
The cross is a religious symbol, just as the Jewish Star of David is a religious symbol. Plain and simple. And, the government has no business putting its stamp of approval on either of these religions or any religion.
