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| The Bladensburg Peace Cross |
The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that an historic, cross-shaped monument may be preserved on public land because it does not violate the Constitution's Establishment Clause.
Cultural property watchers may not have noticed the case of American Legion et al. v. American Humanist Assn. et al. that the United States Supreme Court decided last month and which preserved the display of a cross-shaped war memorial on public property. That’s because the case received greatest attention from religious liberty practitioners and constitutional lawyers monitoring the fate of the controversial Lemon test, which the high court first articulated in 1971 in its landmark decision of Lemon v. Kurtzman—a judicial test that assesses whether there is improper government endorsement or hindrance of religion.
The American Legion case should interest heritage preservationists, nevertheless, because it tackles the recurring question of how public governments are to maintain historic monuments that contain religious symbolism.
Already the outcome of the supreme court's ruling in the American Legion case has prompted the nation's highest court to ask the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit the matter of City of Pensacola, Florida v. Kondrat’yev so that it can reassess whether Pensacola can keep an historic World War II era cross monument erected in a public park.
The American Legion case
focused on the intersection between the preservation of a World War I
memorial and the terms of the U.S. Constitution’s
Establishment Clause. In a 7-2 decision, the supreme court voted to keep the Bladensburg Peace Cross standing, writing, “As our society becomes more and more religiously diverse, a
community may preserve such monuments, symbols, and practices for the sake of
their historical significance or their place in a common cultural heritage.” “The
passage
of time gives rise to a strong presumption of constitutionality.”
