The First Amendment

Freedom of Religion

(Locked hands) ​Link

The government may not restrict citizen’s

right to practice their own religion, nor may
the government establish or endorse a
religion.
A 40-Foot Cross Has Honored War Dead for 90 Years. Is It Unlawful? ​By:
Emily Baumgaertner
BLADENSBURG, Md. — Five miles from the United States Supreme Court, a 40-foot-tall
World War I memorial in the shape of a cross has stood for nearly a century. Now, it is at the
center of a battle over the separation of church and state that may end up on the court’s docket.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declared this month that the Peace
Cross, which sits on state-owned land in Maryland and has been maintained with public funds,
was unconstitutional, a ruling that supporters of the monument warned could result in a
“cleansing” of memorials on public grounds across the country.

An appeal would provide the justices an opportunity to weigh in on increasingly common

disputes over religious symbols on government property. Scholars hope the case will further
distill what is and is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

The Peace Cross, which commemorates 49 fallen soldiers from Prince George’s County, looms
over the knotted intersection of Maryland Route 450 and United States Alternate Route 1 in this
old port town of 10,000 people. When the sun rises, the cross casts a shadow toward the bank of
the Anacostia River, and when it sets, toward an industrial lot housing a King Pawn shop and a
boarded-up Kelley’s Muffler.

The monument was erected in 1925 with funding from local families and the American Legion,
but the state obtained title to the cross and land in 1961, and has spent at least $117,000 to
maintain them.

In a 2-to-1 ruling, the three-judge panel declared that the ​Peace Cross violated the First
Amendment by having “a primary effect of endorsing religion and excessively entangles the
government and religion.”

Douglas Laycock, a religious liberties scholar and professor at the University of Virginia School
of Law, praised the decision.

The cross “asserts the truth of one religion and, implicitly but necessarily, the falsehood of all
other religions,” he said. “Its secondary meanings, as in honoring war dead, are entirely
derivative of its primary meaning as a symbol of the Resurrection.”

If the Fourth Circuit denies a request for the full court to reconsider the panel’s decision,
defenders of the monument vow to take the case to the Supreme Court. They argue that the
ruling sets a dangerous precedent, threatening national treasures such as the 24-foot Canadian
Cross of Sacrifice and 13-foot Argonne Cross in Arlington National Cemetery — both within the
Fourth Circuit’s jurisdiction — as well as the ground zero “cross,” the steel beams discovered
among World Trade Center debris now on display in the National September 11 Memorial &
Museum.

“It is brooding hostility toward religion, a sort of cleansing,” said Kelly Shackelford, the
president of First Liberty Institute, one of the legal groups aiding the American Legion in
defending the cross. “We would immediately need to begin massive bulldozing and sandblasting
of veterans memorials across the country in a way that most people would find inconceivable.”

In his Fourth Circuit dissent, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory, first appointed by President Bill
Clinton, argued that the ​Establishment Clause “does not require the government ‘to purge from
the public sphere’ any reference to religion.”

Supporters of the cross also argue that context is vital: The Peace Cross is displayed alongside an
American flag, amid a park of memorials for veterans of various wars. Its four sides, they say,
are marked prominently with patriotic, not religious, virtues: valor, endurance, courage and
devotion. The fallen soldiers are listed on a tablet with a quote from President Woodrow Wilson.

But opponents say it is hardly integrated: ​No other monument in the area is taller than 10 feet,
and there are no other religious symbols in the park. They note that its fallen soldiers’ names are
rusted away and obscured by bushes. And the cross has been the site of prayer gatherings as well
as Veterans Day vigils — and even such vigils are often opened in prayer.

In McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, officials had authorized the
display of framed copies of the Ten Commandments in courthouses. After pushback, they had
modified the exhibits to include Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence and other
historical documents, arguing that the ​Ten Commandments were similarly influential in the
development of Western legal thought.

The Supreme Court ruled the displays unconstitutional, finding that they had no evident secular
purpose. ​Michael W. McConnell, a constitutional law scholar at Stanford, calls such displays
“triumphalism — a flavor of who is top dog.”

In a second case, Thomas Van Orden v. Rick Perry, the court allowed carvings of the Ten
Commandments in a Texas State Capitol monument that had been donated by the Fraternal
Order of Eagles, a primarily secular group, in 1961. The court cited the donor’s lack of religious
intent.
In his Van Orden opinion, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who cast the swing vote in both cases,
called the historical factor alone “determinative”: The monument had stood since 1961 without
controversy.

The Peace Cross, also donated by a secular group, is almost twice as old as the monument in that
case, and has been on public property for a comparable span. If the Supreme Court reviews this
one, Mr. McConnell believes it will be squarely governed by Justice Breyer’s opinion.

“I think they thought they were putting this kind of case to rest with Van Orden,” said Mr.
McConnell, who has also served as a judge in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Somehow,
the Fourth Circuit didn’t get the memo.”

“I think this is a pretty easy case, and I found the Fourth Circuit’s decision quite surprising. If the
Supreme Court were to grant review, the likelihood is very high that it would be reversed.”

But Peace Cross opponents argue that there is a stark difference between the Ten
Commandments and a cross — namely, the figures each represents.

“The court pointed out that Moses was a lawmaker as well as a religious leader,” said Monica
Miller, senior counsel at the American Humanist Association, who argued the case in the Fourth
Circuit. “There were connections to the nation’s history of lawmakers that made the Ten
Commandments overall less religious than an enormous, free-standing Latin cross that
unequivocally represents Christianity.”

The Supreme Court’s thinking on displays of the cross is murky.

In Salazar v. Buono, ​a 2010 decision​ regarding a cross-shaped war memorial in a remote part of
the Mojave Desert, six justices wrote distinct opinions. In 2011, when the Supreme Court
declined to hear an appeal regarding a series of highway memorial crosses for fallen police
officers in Utah, Justice Clarence Thomas’s 19-page dissent argued that the court had rejected
“an opportunity to provide clarity to an Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles.”

Awaiting its fate, the Peace Cross stands with a tarp draped neatly across the top, where the
concrete has begun to crumble. Elizave Mordan, the King Pawn manager, can see it from her
shop.

“We heard they may be taking it down, and I disagree with that. It just doesn’t bother anybody
around here,” she said as she sorted through power tools, record players and jewelry. “I worry
nobody is going to remember them,” she said of the 49 fallen soldiers. “You can’t remember
something you cannot see.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/us/politics/peace-cross-maryland-court-first-amendment.html
A paraphrase of Emily Baumgaertner’s “A 40-Foot Cross Has Honored War
Dead for 90 Years. Is It Unlawful?”

The Peace Cross, which stands over 40-feet tall, pays a tribute to 49
fallen soldiers from Prince George County, Maryland. The cross was built in
1925 and was paid for by local families and an organization called the
American Legion. Since the cross sits on state-owned land and is currently
being regulated by public funds, many believe that it interferes with the
state and church gap.

The supporters of the cross argue that since the cross itself has
nothing religious on it then it should be constitutional. It is marked with
patriotic virtues like “valor, endurance, courage, and devotion”. They also
argue that if they were to take down this monument, then they would have
to take down any other religious symbols throughout the United States.
Opponents of the cross argue that no other monument in the area is over 10
feet. They are saying that since the monument is higher than everything
else physically, it seems that they are ranking it higher religiously. Another
argument that they make is that there is no other religious symbols in the
park. The opposing side feels that The Peace Cross seems to attract more
prayer gathers than actual Veterans Day vigils, which shows that it crosses
the divide between church and state.

This is a reflection of the freedom of religion/first amendment

because it discussed whether it is okay for the Peace Cross to stand. This is
a conflict between the Supreme Court and The American Legion. The main
question is; are religious monuments allowed to stand on government
property if it is dedicated to fallen soldiers?