“The Peace Cross has stood as a place of solemn commemoration and a source of civic unity for nearly a century,” the petition said. “By compelling its removal, destruction or dismemberment, the panel’s decision will necessitate an act of shocking disrespect for the brave souls of Prince George’s County who died fighting for their country in World War I.”In a brief urging the justices to deny review, the challengers said the memorial honors only Christian veterans, not all of whom welcome the use of a cross in this context. “The Fourth Circuit’s decision,” the brief said, “not only advances religious liberty and equality for non-Christians, but also advances religious freedom for Christians, as many Christians believe the cross’s sacred status is denigrated when the government co-opts it as a symbol of war.”In the Supreme Court’s last encounter with a war memorial in the form of a cross, the justices expressed varying views about the meaning of that symbol in a fractured decision that resolved very little. “A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a plurality opinion in 2010 that was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies would be compounded if the fallen are forgotten.”Justice John Paul Stevens rejected that view. “The cross is not a universal symbol of sacrifice,” he wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

Source: New York Times November 02, 2018 21:30 UTC