A Supreme Court argument on Wednesday about the fate of a cross in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve in southeastern California largely avoided the most interesting question in the case: whether the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion is violated by the display of a cross as a war memorial.
The cross in the desert was erected in the 1930s by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to honor fallen service members. Ten years ago, Frank Buono, a retired employee of the National Park Service, objected to the cross, saying it violated the establishment clause.
In the intervening decade, Congress and the courts have engaged in a legal tug of war. Congress passed measures forbidding removal of the cross, designating it as a national memorial and, finally, ordering the land under the cross to be transferred to private hands. Federal courts in California have insisted that the cross may not be displayed.
At Wednesday’s argument, only Justice Antonin Scalia appeared inclined to reach the establishment clause question.
I have no legal training at all, so the following may well be a statement of foolishness, but it seems to me that what the authors and ratifiers of the Constitution meant was that no particular denomination was to be privileged above others and be formally recognized as the national church. They did not mean that the US, and its constituent states (note that the Constitution did not forbid states from having established churches – the Congregational Church was established in MA until about 1840) could not recognize the place of religion in the life of its citizens nor did it mean that the national government could not recognize and affirm the place of the Christian faith in the life of its citizens – or any other faith for that matter – as long as no particular branch of any faith was supported officially by the government.
As it is now, the Federal government seems to be supporting secularism or agnosticism above anything else.
Thank you Hakkatan,
Even without legal training you have hit the nail on the head. The courts have contorted our nation into a pretzel of illogic. It is almost as though our judges are also without either legal or logic training.
BINGO!! You’ve batted 1000, CanaAnglican!
Removing a cross from federal property doesn’t necessarily mean “supporting secularism or agnosticism”—it might simply mean no longer favoring the establishment of one particular faith over, say, Buddhism or Judaism or the beliefs of the Native Americans.