Free Republic

There's something attractive in the party names in the Supreme Court's decision on the relationship between government and religion: American Legion v. American Humanist Association. Both organizations, the veterans group formed after World War I and the secular humanist group founded the year this nation entered World War II, want to tell you how American they are. And they are locked in the longstanding debate over the meaning of the first clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," it reads, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Note...

Thursday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in American Legion v. American Humanist Association that a 100-year-old World War I memorial cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, doesn’t “establish” religion. That’s the correct result (read my brief for Cato), but the mish-mash of opinions—it took a paragraph to explain which justice was joining which aspect of the decision—leaves Establishment Clause jurisprudence in the muddled state it’s been for decades.That is, much like in the Ten Commandments cases of 2005, the cross here survived largely because it’s really, really old. Justice Samuel Alito, joined in full by Chief Justice John Roberts and...

On Thursday, the Supreme Court in American Legion et. al. v. American Humanist Association, decided that the Bladensburg Peace Cross, which was erected nearly 100 years ago and has stood on public land in Maryland for roughly 50 years, does not violate the Establishment Clause. This decision should be celebrated, but the reasoning that the Court used does not entirely protect religious monuments or other displays in the future. Seven of the justices decided that the Cross does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. However, this was a plurality decision, which means there was not a majority...

The American Humanist Association filed a lawsuit last week in federal court in Maryland calling for the removal of Bladensburg’s 40-foot Memorial Peace Cross, which honors men from Prince George’s County who died during World War I. The association and three individual plaintiffs contend that the cross, which is on state property, violates the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. The cross was dedicated in 1925. ...One of the individual plaintiffs, Steven Lowe of Washington, contends that the cross "associates a Christian religious symbol with the state and gives the impression that the state supports and approves of...