The gold cross on the Los Angeles County seal has sparked a
protest and a federal lawsuit since the County Board of Supervisors
voted 3-2 to remove the seal last week.
In a weekly meeting this Tuesday, the board refused a motion
made by Supervisor Michael Antonovich to reconsider the 3-2 vote to
remove the cross while hundreds gathered outside to protest the
decision.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a self-described civil
rights group, threatened to sue the county if nothing was done in
regard to what the ACLU believed to be an improper endorsement of
religion by the appearance of a cross on the county seal.
Though county attorneys felt the county would have a losing case
if sued by the ACLU, UCLA law Professor Eugene Volokh said the
cross on the county seal is constitutionally permissible when
historical context is considered.
“In context, the cross would be seen as a recognition of
California and Los Angeles history. I don’t think a
reasonable observer would treat it as an endorsement of
Christianity,” Volokh said.
Volokh pointed out that the name of the county, “Los
Angeles,” has a religious meaning, as it is short for
“Town of Queen Mary, Queen of the Angels”. Many other
city names in California, like San Francisco and Sacramento, also
have religious ties.
“Nobody would require that the cities change their names
because in context, the names are historical references. The same
thing applies to the seal,” said Volokh.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky was one of three supervisors that
voted for the removal of the cross. Joel Bellman, press deputy for
Yaroslavsky, said attorneys for the county advised the board that a
potential lawsuit would highly favor the ACLU.
In its letter to the county, the ACLU described the cross as
“a sectarian religious symbol” which violates the
separation of church and state guaranteed in the First
Amendment.
“The cross on the seal clearly represents an endorsement
of one religion over others. In this case, it is
Christianity,” said Tenoch Flores, spokesman for the ACLU of
southern California.
Bellman said Yaroslavsky agrees “it is inappropriate to
have one sectarian symbol at the exclusion of others, but the
immediate reason behind deciding to remove the seal was that the
ACLU threatened to sue and the case lies heavily on its
side.”
Bellman said the proposed replacement for the cross is a mission
building and a symbol representing the American Indians who were in
California before the Spanish missionaries colonized the area.
Though the county avoided a lawsuit from the ACLU, the county is
now being sued by the Thomas More Law Center for the removal of the
cross.
The Thomas More Law Center, a non-profit law firm filed a
federal lawsuit last Friday against Los Angeles County for what it
described as a “government-sponsored message of hostility
toward Christians.”
Mark Ginela, an associate at the law office of the director of
the West Coast offices center, said Christianity has a cultural
role in the history of California and should not be singled
out.
“We feel this is an attack on Christianity and hostility
toward Christianity launched by the ACLU,” Ginela said.
He added that Christianity is not the only religion represented
on the seal because the pagan goddess of fruit trees, Pomona, is
shown as well.
The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty has also offered to
provide legal services to the county for free if the county does
not remove the cross from its seal and is sued as a result.
The ACLU has won earlier fights in court to get crosses removed
from other seals. It won an affirmation by the U.S. Court of
Appeals on the unconstitutionality of the presence of a cross
located on the federal Mojave Desert Preserve and an agreement by
the city of Redlands to remove the cross from its seal.
Volokh said though there have been cases where courts have
struck down religious symbols on official government property or
seals, the L.A. County seal should not be seen as an
unconstitutional religious symbol.
In a case in New Mexico, the court ruled that a cross with the
words “with this we conquer” at the bottom of a county
seal had to be removed .
“In context, that may very well be an endorsement of
religion, but the Los Angeles County seal is not,” Volokh
said.