Religion in the public square

The Mojave Cross case highlights the place of religion in the public square . . .

A cross in the middle of California’s blistering Mojave Desert — seen by more rattlesnakes than people — has become a lightning rod in the debate about religion in the public square.

“The cross is in the middle of nowhere,” said Alan Sears, a member of Legatus’ Phoenix Chapter and president of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a legal alliance defending religious liberty. “It’s literally on thousands of acres of barren land.”

Ironically, the cross stood as a memorial to fallen World War I soldiers for seven decades before anyone complained. Then in 2001, a retired Park Service employee decided the cross offended him. He sued the government for trying to “establish religion” because the monument stood on federal land.

Faith-based nation

The Mojave Cross case highlights an issue that keeps cropping up in America’s courts and political debates: the place of religion in the public square.

One side of the debate, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and secular groups, contends that the First Amendment was intended by the Founding Fathers to forbid any religious references in the public square. The other side, upheld by religious liberty groups, believes that religious symbols have a place in public life — and that the Founding Fathers had no interest in removing every vestige of religiosity from government.

When Sarah Palin said in April that America is a “Christian nation,” secularists were furious. Conversely, religious groups were appalled last year when President Obama said the U.S. is “not a Christian nation.” Though these two sides clash regularly, the former best represents most Americans. A Rasmussen poll taken earlier this year found that 78% of Americans believe in Jesus’ resurrection. National polls over the last three years consistently found that over 90% of Americans believe in God.

Newt Gingrich

“We can say we are a people who are overwhelmingly Christian in belief,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich told Legatus Magazine. “And while we express tolerance for and allow the participation of many backgrounds and many religions — including even atheists — it would be fundamentally false to suggest that Christianity was not the dominant cultural force in American history and in America today.”

Sears contends that anyone who knows their history couldn’t possibly accept the ACLU’s stance. “During the very first Congress in New York City where they adopted the First Amendment, they had prayer meetings with a pastor and a Bible study,” he explained. “Jefferson, who was considered the most irreligious of the Founding Fathers, went to Church on Sundays. The services were held in the Capitol Building.”

Hidden agenda

Around the time of the American Revolution, several states had official state religions. According to Joe Infranco, ADF’s senior vice president, the First Amendment was written to prohibit the establishment of an official religion at the federal level and to prohibit the federal government’s interference in states’ religious activity. Eventually, the First Amendment’s so-called “Establishment Clause” was expanded to all levels of government — local, state and federal.

“It is quite clear that the Founding Fathers wanted the right of religious observation and would never have accepted a government that was driving God out of the public square,” Gingrich said.

Infranco says lawsuits against religious symbols are part of a greater agenda.“The ACLU and allied organizations are the greatest religious censors in the U.S. today,” he said. “They want to sanitize this country of all religious references.”

ADF regularly defends state trooper organizations which put up roadside crosses (or symbols of other faith traditions) when its members are killed. “When you drive and see a cross with flowers on the side of the road, do you think someone is trying to establish a religion? No, you probably think someone died,” Infranco said.

The Mojave Cross case has been in litigation since 2001. The Supreme Court decided on April 28 to allow a land transfer so that the cross could stand on private land. But on May 9, vandals stole the cross in the middle of the night outraging veterans groups everywhere.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy rebuffed secularists. “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm. A cross by the side of a public highway marking, for instance, the place where a state trooper perished need not be taken as a statement of governmental support of sectarian belief. The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion’s role in society.”

National Day of Prayer

Alan Sears

Another case provoking the ire of religious Americans was U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb’s April 15 decision that the National Day of Prayer, held annually since 1952, was unconstitutional. The Obama administration said it will appeal.

“The National Day of Prayer is voluntary,” Sears said. “No one is forced to pray — just like no one is forced to do Thanksgiving or Christmas — yet those are national holidays.”

Religious liberty advocates say Crabb’s decision ignores American history with a rich tradition of prayer in public life. The Supreme Court, White House and Capitol Building all have religious traditions, imagery and engravings. And on D-Day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt prayed on national radio.

“How do secularists explain this?” Gingrich said. “Here is the greatest liberal president of the 20th century praying for six-and a-half minutes — leading the entire nation.

“I suspect the Founding Fathers would say that the experiment since 1963 and an oppressive government blocking school prayer has been a disaster,” Gingrich said. “We need to have a knockdown, drag-out fight and decide if we are a country that believes you have the right to worship God or are we a country where government can block you from God.”

Sears agrees. “These groups have an allergic reaction to anything that has to do with God,” he said. “They aren’t about liberty. They are about stopping everyone they disagree with.”

So while rattlesnakes and armadillos in the Mojave continue to scratch their heads — as they watch the spectacle of a cross covered for years with plywood and finally stolen — the fight goes on.

Sabrina Arena Ferrisi is a Legatus Magazine staff writer.

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The First Amendment

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

—Ratified Dec. 15, 1791