Posted on 04/22/2011 9:26:28 AM PDT by jazusamo
(CNSNews.com) - If a recent appeals court decision is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Christian cross could soon become an unconstitutional symbol -- even in places like Arlington Cemetery, a conservative advocacy group warns.
The case, Davenport v. American Atheists, Inc., “may very well be the most important religious liberty case in decades,” the Family Research Council said.
The case dates to 2005, when an atheist group sued the Utah Highway Patrol and the Utah Transportation Department, arguing that roadside memorial crosses honoring fallen state troopers constitute a state establishment of religion. The memorials are fully funded and maintained by a private organization, the Utah Highway Patrol Association.
In December 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit agreed with the atheists and reversed a lower-court ruling. The federal appeals court said that privately funded crosses erected on public land were an unconstitutional state endorsement of Christianity.
“If the Utah crosses are ultimately struck down, it could jeopardize similar memorials honoring other fallen heroes across the nation, including 14 crosses on Colorado’s Storm King Mountain where firefighters lost their lives in a 1994 wildfire,” said the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which last week filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the erecting of crosses.
“This is yet another example of how the Establishment Clause has been turned on its head and is now being used by the courts to prohibit the guaranteed ‘free exercise’ of religion,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said of the federal appeals court ruling.
“As one who has served in uniform and has lost friends in the defense of freedom and in the protection of the public, I find it tragic that these freedoms are now at greater risk from our own courts than from the foreign or domestic enemies we've faced. This decision must be reversed,” Perkins added.
FRC said it is helping to coordinate nationwide support for attorneys representing the state of Utah. The effort includes a petition urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.
The Alliance Defense Fund points to an April 2010 Supreme Court ruling that specifically addressed the subject of roadside crosses. In Salazar v. Buono, the court ruled that a cross-shaped veterans’ memorial in California’s Mojave Desert did not have to be removed.
“The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm,” the Supreme Court wrote in Salazar.
“A cross by the side of a public highway marking, for instance, the place where a state trooper perished need not be taken as a statement of governmental support for sectarian beliefs. The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion’s role in society,” the court said.
The Alliance Defense Fund said the guidance found in Salazar “applies directly” to the Davenport case.”
So who’s going to replace all the tens of thousands of crosses in Arlington Cemetery? Give me a break!!!!
I’m sure that a negative decision by the Supreme Court will stop crosses from popping up at scenes of officer’s deaths...
What ever the faith of the officers, they died serving and protecting all citizens. The government representing all citizens, of faith or none, using citizens dollars without earmarks, could have created memorials with badges or shapes of the state or any nonsectarian symbol. Did those in charge pick this fight for a reason, or are they just stupid?
Looks like no taxpayer dollars were used.
“This is yet another example of how the Establishment Clause has been turned on its head and is now being used by the courts to prohibit the guaranteed ‘free exercise’ of religion,”
Eactly!
Whoa.....upsize caught me by surprise!
That’s perfectly okay, it shows the detail. Thanks!
Right, just like my father and uncles all of whom are buried in military cemetaries under the sign of the cross.
The government representing all citizens, of faith or none, using citizens dollars without earmarks, could have created memorials with badges or shapes of the state or any nonsectarian symbol.
They still could but no public money was used and nobody was memorialized with a cross that didn't want to be.
Did those in charge pick this fight for a reason, or are they just stupid?
Nobody picked a fight and the only stupidity here is exhibited by those who think the secular has special rights over the religious in the public square.
the Family Research Council said.
This reminds me of a big problem with what passes as "news" these days. Many people might accept this as a news article since it's from a news organization, but it's not. It's an opinion piece with input from only one side of the issue.
It’s been several years ago but I read that if a family odjected to the cross it wouldn’t be put up.
This ruling is a result of how the Marxist win by changing the meaning of words. Religion has a definition that includes having leaders, rewards and punishments for certain behavior, and rituals among other things. A symbol of belief is not my itself a Religion. Through the convoluted login of “post modernism” word not longer mean what we though they do, they mean whatever the Marxist wants them to mean in a particular context, or postmodern hermeneutics .
So to say that showing a cross promotes a religion is a farce and just another attack on our culture and our Christian beginnings, to eliminate God from our culture so that our rights are no longer inalienable rights endowed by our creator, but rights a government gives you and can be taken away or modified at a bureaucrats whim.
You're entire post is well said, especially the above.
And presumably the family’s wishes are honored in the details, e.g. a fallen professing Jew would get a star of David marker, a Buddhist would get a Buddha figure, and I don’t know what an atheist would get (a blank square?).
These lately seem to embrace privately-owned memorial displays that to those not in the know might “look like” they were government expressions. Does it need to be blatantly obvious, such as “put up solely by friends and family of officer so and so” before passing muster?
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