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Anonymous ID: ef9064 Feb. 22, 2019, 11 p.m. No.5341995   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>2004

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to protect a WWI memorial and make religious liberty history

 

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in what may be a watershed case for religion in public life in the United States. At least, that’s what some religious liberty proponents hope will happen.

 

The question is whether a 40-foot, 93-year-old World War I memorial in the shape of a cross at a busy intersection in Bladensburg, Maryland, violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

 

(see video in article)

 

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The Supreme Court has an opportunity to protect a WWI memorial and make religious liberty history

Nate Madden · February 22, 2019

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peace cross in bladensburg

Mark Gail/The Washington Post | Getty Images

 

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in what may be a watershed case for religion in public life in the United States. At least, that’s what some religious liberty proponents hope will happen.

 

The question is whether a 40-foot, 93-year-old World War I memorial in the shape of a cross at a busy intersection in Bladensburg, Maryland, violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

 

Here’s my explainer from 2017:

 

So why could the Supreme Court make legal history on this case? Well, as it stands, the body of precedent on the Establishment Clause gives courts, attorneys, and government officials no clear standards to figure out whether or not a “passive display” that has religious imagery violates the First Amendment or not.

 

Since 1971, courts have inconsistently applied the three-pronged “Lemon test,” which came out of the Lemon v. Kurtzman case. In short, it tests whether the display in question has a secular purpose, doesn’t advance or inhibit religion, and doesn’t foster “excessive entanglement” between church and state. However, in a 2005 Ten Commandments case, a plurality of the SCOTUS justices opted to forgo the Lemon test, calling it “not useful in dealing with the sort of passive monument” in that case and instead focusing on the “nature of the monument” and “our Nation’s history.”

 

In addressing the Bladensburg monument, the lower courts have used what the solicitor general’s office calls a “hybrid approach” that combines elements of the standards used the two cases mentioned above, further adding to the confusion.

 

“Because each test’s application is so context-dependent,” the brief asserts, “disputes often cannot be resolved at an early stage; and even seemingly minor differences between displays can produce divergent outcomes.”

 

“Cases like these cannot help but divide those with sincerely held beliefs on both sides,” the SG’s brief concluded. “This case presents an opportunity for the Court to adopt a standard for Establishment Clause challenges to passive displays that will reduce factious litigation, provide clarity to lower courts, and promote consistency across cases.”

 

…

https://www.conservativereview.com/news/supreme-court-opportunity-protect-wwi-memorial-make-religious-liberty-history/