On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case American Legion v. American Humanist Association. By a margin of 7-2, the judges determined that a large Roman cross, known as the Peace Cross, could remain on public land and be maintained by the state.
The cross was erected after World War I by the mothers of fallen American soldiers. Its primary purpose as a memorial to the soldiers, rather than an expression of public Christianity, was a key part of the court's determination to let it stand. But a cross is a religious symbol, and no other use of it can detract from that. While using a cross to honor the dead passed without question in previous decades, it is, at least to the humanists who demanded its removal, an implicit statement of faith on public land.
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