How arguments on Maryland cross could affect Lehigh County’s seal
As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown wiser in at least one sense — I’ve learned to pick my battles. I could complain about a lot of things. I don’t because it’s not worth my time. And the reality is, most things I grumble about are annoying but not lifealtering.
I wish people who challenge the existence of decades-old religious symbols such as crosses on government property felt the same way.
We all know the Constitution says government can’t endorse religion. But until I see a city, county or state making decisions based on religion, such as offering lower taxes for followers of one faith or withholding services from followers of other faiths, then I don’t see how a cross on a public seal or war memorial hurts anyone.
Those who sue, often with the backing or perhaps urging of organizations with their own agendas, are picking fights just because they can. They’re wasting the tax money needed to defend suits in the process.
Governments certainly shouldn’t be erecting crosses on new buildings or monuments, or including them on new logos. That goes for putting up nativities at Christmas, too. We know better now; it sends the wrong message. Our forefathers who used crosses on government property and logos should have thought better of it. They don’t belong there.
But many symbols have been around longer than most of us have been alive. They should be left as they are, unless there’s proof that those governing with those symbols are religiously biased.
The U.S. Supreme Court has a chance to make that statement in a case it heard Wednesday that likely will have local implications.
The court heard arguments in a challenge to a cross-shaped war memorial. It’s on a state-owned highway median in Bladensburg, Md.
A local challenge seeking to remove the cross from Lehigh County’s official government seal has been put on hold pending the outcome of that case.
A handful of Lehigh County residents who are members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation sued over the cross in the seal, which was created in the 1940s. A federal judge ruled in their favor in 2017. The county’s appeal is pending in the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
It has defended the seal as being historical in nature because it recognizes the area’s Christian settlers.
The Supreme Court must decide whether the Maryland cross violates the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment, which says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
That clause has been interpreted by many courts many times. They broadly have agreed that in addition to forbidding governments from establishing an official religion, the clause prohibits governments from taking actions that favor one religion over others, or favoring religion over nonreligion, or nonreligion over religion.
Whether particular crosses or symbols show favoritism are heard case-bycase.
This isn’t the Supreme Court’s first crack at this. It previously ruled on a cross serving as a war memorial in 2010. The court allowed that World War I memorial to remain in the Mojave National Preserve in California.
It was a messy decision, though, by a 5-4 margin, with several dissenting opinions.
The majority said a lower court that ordered the cross to be removed had not considered that Congress arranged a land swap that would result in the cross being on private property. The justices ordered the lower court to reconsider the case and weigh whether the land transfer changed the circumstances.
The cross in Maryland wasn’t erected by the government. It was built privately in 1925. A government commission acquired the land in 1961, at least partly because of safety concerns about increasing traffic around the cross.
Now that it is being maintained by the government, the cross is being challenged by local residents and the American Humanist Association. They want the cross removed, or the memorial altered to a different shape. The American Legion, whose symbol is on the cross, is joining the state in defending it.
Other organizations have filed legal briefs in support and opposition. One points out a big problem that must be corrected, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation argues the cross does not belong, in part because it is not an inclusive memorial to that area’s World War I dead, as it does not include the names of Jewish servicemen.
Those names should be added to the memorial immediately.
Opponents may not like the cross — and I acknowledge that to some it may be offensive, like unshoveled sidewalks, double-parkers and idiots who throw cigarette butts out their car windows offend me.
But the Maryland cross case, like the Lehigh seal case, involves picking a fight for the sake of picking a fight.
paul.muschick@mcall.com 610-820-6582 Paul Muschick’s columns are published Monday through Friday at themorningcall.com and Sunday, Wednesday and Friday in The Morning Call. Follow me on Facebook at PaulMuschickColumns, Twitter @mcwatchdog and themorningcall.com/muschick.