The September 11 cross stands in front of 4 World Trade Center during a ceremony, Saturday, July 23, 2011, in New York. After the ceremony, the cross was installed at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. It was discovered upright in the ruins of ground zero following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)You may recall the two steel beams that remained standing in the rubble, in the shape of a cross, after the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed in the terrorist attacks on New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.
For many, that cross at the World Trade Center site became a symbol of hope and comfort. But whatever your views, it was obviously a stark, memorable image after the attacks. So it is perfectly natural that the cross would become part of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, to which it was recently moved.
But now, predictably, an obscure atheist organization has filed a lawsuit in New York to keep the cross out of the memorial.
The atheists claim, among other things, that seeing the cross literally causes sickness.
“The plaintiffs … have suffered, are suffering, and will continue to suffer damages, both physical and emotional, from the existence of the challenged cross,” the lawsuit claims.