This Cross Is a Monument, and Now a Landmark for the Supreme Court
A religious symbol on public land isn’t automatically unconstitutional, the justices say. You have to look at the context.
Still standing.
Photographer: Mark Gail/Washington Post/Getty Images
In what is destined to become a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of a World War I monument in the form of a large Latin cross in a public intersection in Bladensburg, Maryland. The controlling opinion, by Justice Samuel Alito, flatly acknowledged that “the cross is undoubtedly a Christian symbol.” But that wasn’t the end of the story, because the court also said the cross functioned as a monument, a symbol of the nation and a historical landmark.
The opinion in American Legion v. American Humanist Association marks the first time the Supreme Court has squarely held that religious symbols dating back many decades should be evaluated under a different standard than newly erected ones. In the process, the court also took a big step toward abandoning the idea that there should be a single constitutional test to determine whether the First Amendment’s establishment clause has been violated — a view that four justices expressly embraced.