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In 1957 Los Angeles County redesigned its County Seal. The Seal was designed to reflect a broad spectrum of icons of significance in Los Angeles. Among the items included on the County Seal were the Hollywood Bowl and a very small cross to signify an old Los Angeles landmark - a cross atop a hill near the Hollywood Bowl. The cross was also an homage to the missionary origins of Los Angeles, whose original name was "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula." For decades the seal stood as the official seal of the County...

A group of Los Angeles County residents who want to see a small cross restored to the government seal there have begun a second effort to get an initiative placed on the ballot to do just that. A petition drive with the deadline of March 1 failed to collect the 175,000 signatures needed, falling 66,000 short. But organizers are not deterred and are starting the collection process once more, hoping to have a measure placed on the November 2006 ballot. Old L.A. County seal As WorldNetDaily reported, last year the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, threatened to sue the...

HOLLYWOOD - Just as Martin Luther King Jr. strove for justice for African Americans, the people who want Los Angeles County to keep the cross on its seal say they are striving to keep intact the symbol of the Judeo-Christian values King promoted. At a rally Monday, the day set aside nationwide to celebrate King's legacy, speakers at the Hollywood Ramada Inn encouraged residents to finish collecting the 341,212 signatures needed by March 1 to retain the seal's cross. "Where do we think Martin Luther King Jr.'s ideas of equality, humanity and love our neighbor came from? They came from...

Here is a description of the seal of Los Angeles County. There are six small panels, three going up and down each side of the seal's central figure. Top left: engineering instruments. Middle left: a Spanish galleon. Bottom left: a tuna representing the fishing industry. Top right: oil derricks. Middle right: the Hollywood Bowl, along with two stars representing the movie industry and one small cross. Bottom right: a prize cow. The central figure, the largest object on the seal: Pomona, the Roman goddess of gardens and fruit trees. Anything disturb you enough to demand that the seal be redesigned?...

LOS ANGELES - A redesigned Los Angeles County seal, minus a tiny gold cross, is drawing praise from the American Civil Liberties Union and scorn from those who thought the design was fine the way it was, cross and all. The redesign's most dramatic change is the replacement of the goddess Pomona in the large center panel with a Native American woman. But the most controversial was the new image of the San Gabriel Mission - pictured without a cross on the roof - and the removal of the cross. The rendition of the seal goes before the Board of...

Friday, September 10, 2004 L.A. County's new cross-less sealBoard to vote on logo after ACLU threat, pagan goddess nixed too Posted: September 10, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is set to vote on a proposed new county seal next week after a threatened lawsuit caused the lawmakers to delete a tiny cross from the logo. The allegedly unconstitutional county seal As WorldNetDaily reported, the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, threatened to sue the county if the board did not redesign the seal. The law group claimed the small cross violated the First Amendment...

Reportedly upset over the recent decision of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to kow-tow to the ACLU and delete the tiny cross on the City's official seal, Mel Gibson is reported to be interested in helping to fight to retain the symbol, which represents the historical roots of the county. The city was first founded as a Christian mission. Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, the courageous supervisor who has battled to keep the cross on the seal, told the Los Angeles Daily News that Gibson had met with Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president of the National Jewish Christian Alliance Toward Tradition....

Just heard on John and Ken that the Bd of Supes voted (3:2) YES to the ACLU-acceptable 'compromise' -- which consists of: a 'Mission' without a cross (aka Taco Bell), Native American (stick) figures ... and the Lord only knows what else. They played a clip of Yvonne B.B. saying, "We don't have to stoop to dealing with THESE people (the pastors, rabbis, fine citizens of Los Angeles who were in the hearing room)." Which is WAY too much like 'Let them eat cake' for my liking. And Zev Y compared it to de-Segregation in the 1960s: "The citizens would...

ANN ARBOR, MI - The West Coast regional office of the Thomas More Law Center, a national, public-interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed a lawsuit today in federal district court in California, seeking to prevent Los Angeles County officials from removing the cross from the County's official seal. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Mr. Ernesto Vasquez, a County employee, who objects to the removal of the cross because it sends a government-sponsored message of hostility towards Christians in violation of the United States Constitution. Attorney Charles LiMandri, director of the Law Center's West Coast regional...

LOS ANGELES -- County supervisors decided to remove a tiny cross from the county's official seal rather than face a potential lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. The supervisors held an emotional debate Tuesday before deciding to replace the cross with another image -- possibly a representation of a Spanish mission or California's indigenous tribes. The cross has been on the county seal since 1957 in a panel with two stars above a depiction of the Hollywood Bowl. The Bowl was intended as a symbol of culture while one star represents film and the other television.   In...

ACLU has just sued Los Angeles County for having a cross on their County Seal. The cross represents the San Gabriel Mission (estab'd 1771) around which the city grew. We LOVE our Missions, and we cherish our history. How DARE the ACLU try to erase it?? Dennis Prager featured it this am, interviewed Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who is one (of 2)(out of 5) who want to fight this. The vote is not til next Tuesday, June 8. I called Sup. Don Knabe's office, and she said "Would you fax a letter of support?" I encourage everyone from all over the...

Nearly half a century after Los Angeles County adopted an official seal with a tiny cross in it, the local American Civil Liberties Union chapter declared it unconstitutional and threatened on Monday to sue to have it removed. The ACLU Southern California chapter said the "Latin cross" on the seal is a "sectarian religious symbol" and reflects an "impermissible endorsement of Christianity." The seal was adopted 47 years ago but the ACLU never challenged it. The organization said its complaint was prompted by phone calls it received after the city of Redlands recently agreed to remove a cross from the...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union is demanding the removal of a tiny cross that is among historic symbols on Los Angeles County's official seal. The seal "prominently depicts a Latin cross, a sectarian religious symbol that represents the beliefs of one segment of the county's diverse population" and is an "impermissible endorsement of Christianity" by the county government, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California said in a letter to county officials this week. "Under clearly established law, the seal is unconstitutional," the letter said, warning that refusal to remove the cross in a "reasonable time-frame" would cause the ACLU to seek a court order.</p>