High court: Cross can stay on public land.
WASHINGTON » A 40-foot cross erected as a tribute to World War I dead may continue to stand on public land in Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting arguments that it represented an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
The vote was 7 to 2 for the Bladensburg Peace Cross, which towers over a busy intersection on a highway just outside of the District of Columbia, in Prince George’s County.
But the case’s resolution prompted an outpouring of individual opinions as the court struggled to explain what should be done with displays on government property that feature religious imagery.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the main opinion and said history and tradition must be taken into account when judging modern objections to monuments that were built with a secular purpose or have come to take on a new meaning.
“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,” Alito wrote. “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.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, and Ginsburg emphasized her strong disagreement by reading part of her dissent from the bench. She said the court’s decision to maintain the cross-shaped monument on public land “erodes” the constitutional principle that “demands governmental neutrality.”
By honoring World War I service members with a cross-shaped memorial, the state of Maryland, she said, “places Christianity above other faiths” and sends the message to people of other faiths that “they are outsiders.”
“Making a Latin cross a war memorial does not make the cross secular,” Ginsburg said. “Quite the contrary, the image of the cross makes the war memorial sectarian. The Peace Cross is no exception.”