The U.S. Supreme Court signaled a major and troubling change in its view of religious symbols on public land Wednesday. In another narrow 5-4 decision, the court overturned a lower court ruling that ordered removal of a war memorial cross from a remote spot in California's Mojave Desert. The language of the majority strongly suggests the court is willing to accept the idea that the Constitution does not require the removal of religious symbols from government-owned lands. That's a troubling prospect.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said that California judges erred when they ruled that the U.S. National Park Service must remove a Latin Cross erected in 1934 to honor World War I dead because it constituted government endorsement of religion. He said, instead, that the First Amendment called for a "policy of accommodation" toward religious displays on public land rather than a strict separation of church and state. That's a radical change from long-established practice.
It should be noted that the case is not closed. The Supreme Court remanded the case to a lower court to sort out whether or not the dubious sale of the land on which the cross stands to a private group that agreed to maintain the cross was an improper act. Still, the majority decision, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, makes it clear change is in the judicial air.
Justice Kennedy wrote that "A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs. Here, a Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."
That stirred a spirited and thoughtful response from dissenting judges.
Justice John Paul Stevens, who will retire at the end of the current session, wrote for the minority. He said: "The cross is not a universal symbol of sacrifice. It is the symbol of one particular sacrifice, and that sacrifice carries deeply significant meaning for those who adhere to the Christian faith." He's right. It is impossible to separate a cross from its religious meaning.
Indeed, the tens of thousands of men and women whose gravestones in national cemeteries here and abroad are marked by the symbols of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hindusim and other faiths are powerful testament to the validity of Justice Stevens' reasoning. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen G. Breyer joined in dissent.
Wednesday's decision, overturns a lower court's reasonable ruling that the cross does not belong at its current location. In doing so, the high court undermines the nation's core values. The presence of the cross in the desert -- and the absence of other symbols of faith at the same location despite efforts to place them there -- implies that the government favors one faith above others.
That's not acceptable. The government should not, directly or indirectly, promote one religion to the exclusion of others. That practice is wrong and, more to the point, un-American.