Must Atheist Suck Up LA’s Historical Cross?

Letter to Romans: LA’s Mexican Americans should rest easy tho an atheist sued the city to crucify its 97-yr-old Cross & Nativity display. MSM is hyping the case as a threat to all religious displays on public property. But a judge dismissed it & 9^th Circuit will likely too ...

That’s because US Supreme Court precedents have rejected the notion that public property must be sanitized of all religious symbols. The most recent & arguably controlling case is 2019’s American Legion v American Humanist Assn. In that seminal decision, the Supremes considered a 40-foot Latin aka Christian cross on government property in Maryland that had been erected in 1925 as a WWI memorial. Justice Alito, in his 7-2 majority opinion, emphasized that “context matters.” Courts, he said, should be reluctant to remove or cover up such “longstanding religiously expressive monuments, symbols & practices” since their tearing down could itself signal “hostility” to the Constitution’s Freedom of Religion Clause. But, even more recently, in 2022’s Kennedy v Bremerton School District ruling, the Justices emphasized that possible “Establishment Clause” cases like this should also no longer be decided on whether it somehow “endorsed” any religion; instead, they should focus on historical practices & understandings only.

Clearly, the facts in today’s Gerritsen v City of LA as detailed in a recent Fox News story are like those involved in American Legion & Kennedy. In this still pending lawsuit, LA had erected its cross & adjacent Nativity on Olivera Street in 1929 to commemorate LA’s 148^thanniversary; together they’ve been an integral part of the city’s annual Las Posadas celebration of Mexican American culture & heritage. As mentioned, a federal district judge has already dismissed the lawsuit. That, of course, is not to say atheist Gerritsen has no chance of winning on appeal. Yet even a liberal 9^th Circuit would be hard-pressed to apply the above Supreme Court precedents but rule the Olivera Street Cross & Nativity be covered or dismantled. And if they did, the Supremes would likely resurrect the Christian symbols.

Davd Soul