Baxter was wrong again, 7-2, Giant cross can remain on public land

[a425couple]

from
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-huge-cross-remain-public-land-n1014661?fbclid=IwAR3zPOObxv3MBKt8WF4Lbsc3ER8cYAYgBLbSjW-c3FjBKPtCbkOhj3orsck

( ! 7 to 2, not even close!! )

Supreme Court rules giant cross can remain on public land

The ruling reverses a lower court decision on the 40-foot-high WWI
memorial in suburban Washington, D.C.

Image: Maryland Peace Cross
Visitors walk around the 40-foot Maryland Peace Cross dedicated to
World War I soldiers on Feb. 13, 2019, in Bladensburg, Maryland.
Kevin Wolf / AP file
June 20, 2019, 7:15 AM PDT / Updated June 20, 2019, 8:39 AM PDT
By Pete Williams

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a huge concrete cross
can stay on public land in suburban Washington, rejecting a claim that
its presence is an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.

By a 7-2 vote, the court said such monuments are essentially historic,
not religious, a ruling that potentially extended protection to hundreds
of similar tributes nationwide.

"With sufficient time, religiously expressive monuments, symbols, and
practices can become embedded features of a community's landscape and
identity," Justice Samuel Alito wrote. "The cross is undoubtedly a
Christian symbol, but that fact should not blind us to everything else
that the Bladensburg cross has come to represent."

The decision was a victory for defenders of the Peace Cross, a
40-foot-tall structure that has stood for more than 90 years in
Bladensburg, Maryland. It was built with private funds to honor 49
servicemen from the region who died in World War I. A state parks
commission took it over in 1961 to provide for its maintenance, and it
now sits in the middle of a busy traffic interchange.

Supreme Court allows cross memorial in Maryland to stand
JUNE 20, 201902:27

The court rejected a challenge from the American Humanist Association,
which filed a lawsuit claiming that the presence of the cross on public
land was an endorsement of a single religious faith.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. By
maintaining the cross on a public highway, Ginsburg wrote, the county
"elevates Christianity over other faiths, and religion over nonreligion."

She took the unusual step of announcing her dissent from the bench. "In
World War I and thereafter, the cross was never perceived as an
appropriate headstone or memorial for soldiers who did not adhere to
Christianity," she wrote.

The state parks commission defended the cross as a memorial designed to
mirror cross-shaped markers on the graves of American service members
overseas. In the aftermath of World War I, it said, crosses became the
cultural symbol of the fallen, as depicted in one of the most famous
poems of the war: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow/ Between the
crosses, row on row."

Thursday's Supreme Court opinion quoted from that poem by John McCrae.
"The image of a simple white cross developed into a cultural symbol of
the conflict," Alito wrote.

"The adoption of the cross as the Bladensburg memorial must be seen in
that historical context," he said. "Its removal or radical alteration at
this date would be seen by many not as a neutral act but as the
manifestation of a hostility toward religion."

Because Thursday's ruling relied so heavily on the history, it suggested
that an attempt to build such a cross to honor war dead today might not
pass constitutional muster.

The Trump administration urged the court to let the cross remain. In a
friend of the court brief, the Justice Department said the
Constitution's ban on an establishment of religion does not prohibit the
acknowledgment of religion in public life.

"Passive displays generally fall on the permissible side of that line,
because they typically do not compel religious belief," it said.

Thursday's ruling adds to the muddle of past Supreme Court decisions on
the acceptability of public displays or expressions of religious faith.
The court has upheld opening prayers at legislative sessions and has
ruled against challenges to "In God We Trust" on currency or the phrase
"Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. But it also invalidated
displays of the Ten Commandments in local courthouses.


Pete Williams
Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice
Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke]

Fucking boring.

[max headroom]

In news:rLQOE.2$pX...@fx48.iad, Colonel Edmund J. Burke <Your_C...@usa.com> typed:

> Fucking boring.

Only to the easily bored.

[a425couple]

On 6/20/2019 11:33 AM, a425couple wrote:
> from
> https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-huge-cross-remain-public-land-n1014661?fbclid=IwAR3zPOObxv3MBKt8WF4Lbsc3ER8cYAYgBLbSjW-c3FjBKPtCbkOhj3orsck
>
> ( ! 7 to 2, not even close!!  )
>
> Supreme Court rules giant cross can remain on public land
>
> The ruling reverses a lower court decision on the 40-foot-high WWI
> memorial in suburban Washington, D.C.

Even SCOTUS judges like Kagan (named by POTUS Obama)
and Breyer (named by POTUS Clinton) agreed.

from
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-says-peace-cross-war-memorial-can-stay

The Court determined that factors, including the history of the
memorial, support the idea that it is not religious in nature.

“For nearly a century, the Bladensburg Cross has expressed the
community’s grief at the loss of the young men who perished, its thanks
for their sacrifice, and its dedication to the ideals for which they
fought,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s opinion. Alito noted
that while this particular cross does not serve a religious purpose,
removing it because it is a cross would be a religiously charged action.

“It has become a prominent community landmark, and its removal or

radical alteration at this date would be seen by many not as a neutral

act but as the manifestation of ‘a hostility toward religion that has no
place in our Establishment Clause traditions,’” he wrote, quoting
Justice Breyer’s concurrence in the 2005 decision in Van Orden v. Perry.

The court's decision reverses the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which
ruled that the cross was unconstitutional.

The 7-2 majority on Thursday cited the structure's historical nature in
its narrowly drawn decision, saying the Latin cross design reflected the
nationwide trend at the time it was erected to honor war dead with
community monuments. The cross was associated with World War I, and the
Court noted that the U.S. used it in military honors, such as the
Distinguished Service Cross in 1918 and Navy Cross in 1919.

The Bladensburg Peace Cross, as it is known, sits in a traffic circle in
the Washington suburbs to honor 49 local World War I soldiers who died
in battle overseas.

Its supporters, including the Trump administration, said it was created
solely to honor those heroes and is secular in nature. Opponents called
it an impermissible overlap of church and state, since it is controlled
and cared for by a Maryland parks commission.

The Court noted that while the cross has its roots in Christianity, it
currently appears contexts that are “indisputably secular,” such as
trademarks for Blue Cross Blue Shield, Bayer Group, and certain products
from Johnson & Johnson.

The Court also made a distinction between keeping established monuments
with religious symbols, like the Peace Cross, and erecting new ones,
stating, "Familiarity itself can become a reason for preservation," and,
"The passage of time gives rise to a strong presumption of
constitutionality."

Even AHA recognized that cross memorials may be permissible in some
cases, like certain World War I Latin crosses in Arlington National
Cemetery. While AHA claimed that those crosses are different because
they are in a cemetery and are more associated with individual soldiers,
the Court said that does not make a difference, as memorials serve the
same purpose as gravestones for many grieving families.

Ultimately, the Court determined that despite the religious significance
of crosses in general, this particular memorial does not violate the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, even though public funds
are used for its upkeep.

"[T]there is no evidence of discriminatory intent in the selection of
the design of the memorial or the decision of a Maryland commission to
maintain it," the Court said. "The Religion Clauses of the Constitution
aim to foster a society in which people of all beliefs can live together
harmoniously, and the presence of the Bladensburg Cross on the land
where it has stood for so many years is fully consistent with that aim."

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke]

People of extreme intellect often get that way, boner.

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke]

No need to repoast, idjit. We all got sufficiently bored the furst time.

[Vincent]

Something you would know nothing about.
>

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke]

You can stuff John's sausage up yer kazoo, asshole.

[None of the Above]

...said no person of actual extreme intellect, ever...

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke]

LOL

[Vincent]

You seem to have a thang for John's Sausage. Is that you evening
snack...After it has been up your Kazoo?