Next month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association. The case involves the 40-foot-tall “Peace Cross” (a.k.a. the Bladensburg Cross), a World War I memorial in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
While supporters of the cross say it’s a perfectly legal war memorial, the AHA argues that it’s really just a giant advertisement for Christianity — maintained using taxpayer dollars — and any reasonable person looking at the cross would agree. If they lose the case, we may see an outpouring of Christian crosses erected on public property for ostensibly secular purposes… even though the real reason would be obvious to everyone.
The AHA submitted its written arguments last week and its allies submitted theirs yesterday. Remember that the question at hand, as explained by the AHA’s attorney Monica Miller, is this: “Does the Establishment Clause allow the government to permanently and prominently commemorate Christian veterans — and only Christian veterans — by funding, maintaining, using, and displaying a massive concrete Latin cross in the center of a heavily-trafficked intersection at the entrance of town?”
