It's a Cross the ACLU Cannot Bear
by Chad Groening and Jody Brown
June 7, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Christian attorney says he is grieved that Los Angeles County caved to the ACLU and will remove a small cross from its official seal.The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the decision came after a lively debate among the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The American Civil Liberties Union had threatened to sue the county if it did not remove the cross, describing it as an "impermissible endorsement of Christianity."
In the end, the supervisors decided on a 3-2 vote -- three Democrats to two Republicans -- that the tiny cross was not worth a lawsuit and agreed to remove it. According to reports, one of the Republican supervisors, Mike Antonovich, is fighting for a re-vote on the matter and plans to raise the issue again at the June 8 meeting of the Board of Supervisors.
Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (CLP), laments the Board's decision to simply lie down when faced by a threat from the ACLU.
"In the end, the majority of [the county supervisors] simply didn't want to fight -- and if you don't fight, you certainly can't win," Crampton says. "So the ACLU's threat results in a victory without having to fire a shot."
Crampton thinks the ACLU would be better served pursuing civil liberties rather than running around the country looking for crosses. The CLP attorney also thinks Los Angeles County supervisors had a good case for keeping the cross on their county seal. "I think they had a very good case to make," he states. "I am grieved at their decision to simply roll over at the ACLU."
As it is currently constituted, the county seal incorporates other non-religious images, such as a cow and a fish. But Crampton notes that the ACLU did not seem to have a problem with another religious symbol on the county seal -- the image of a pagan goddess, which is the central figure on the county seal.
"They have the Roman goddess Pomona [on the seal]," he explains. "Well, the ACLU doesn't say anything about the existence of this plainly religious figure. They're only interested in going after the Christian symbol."
Not So Fast ...
Crampton is not the only person who interprets the ACLU's actions as anti-Christian. The Thomas More Law Center in Michigan states that the ACLU has a plan to "systematically remove Christianity from the public square." That's why they filed a federal lawsuit on Friday to prevent removal of the cross from the LA County seal.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, was brought on behalf of an employee of Los Angeles County who feels that removal of the cross sends a government-sponsored message of hostility towards Christians in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, the suit claims the county's actions convey "an impermissible state-sponsored message of disapproval of and hostility toward Christianity in violation of the Establishment Clause."
More Law Center associate counsel Robert Muise says the ball is now in the supervisors' court. "LA County now has a choice to make: offend the ACLU and keep the cross, or defend their unconstitutional policy of discrimination against Christians in the federal court," he says, adding this comment:
"The county supervisors were sadly mistaken if they believed that Christians would just roll over and let the county treat them as second-class citizens."
