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When is a cross not a cross? When it’s built on federal land in the middle of the California desert near Nevada as part of a tribute to those who died in WWI, and Catholic Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court say that it’s a symbol of all soldiers – regardless of their religion.

In the end, five of the Supremes used that rationale to overturn a lower court decision that the giant metal cross must be taken down because it represents one specific religion, Christianity.

The case against the cross was filed in 2001 by Frank Buono, a former National Park Service employee, with the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Buono’s contention was, logically, that the all-too-familiar Christian symbol doesn’t represent those service members who are Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, etc.

Trying to avoid any violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition on “establishment of religion,” Congress then sold the patch of land around the cross to a vet’s group.

The lower court agreed with Buono that the cross was a Christian thing and simply had to go.

Five of the six Catholics on the Supreme Court ultimately sent the case back to the lower court for another hearing. They said the cross doesn’t have to go, but can remain where it is.

“Although a Christian symbol,” Kennedy wrote, “the cross was not placed on Sunrise Rock to promote a Christian message.”

But it does, Blanche, it does.

There is nothing in the world that instantly invokes Christianity quite as clearly as the image of the cross. That’s because, as Peter Eliasberg, attorney for the ACLU, told the highest court: “It signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins.”

For the past 2,000 years, the cross has been used by Christians to mark themselves as “true believers.” Churches are adorned with them. People wear miniature metal replicas around their necks and are buried with them in their coffins. Catholics make the “sign of the cross” when they pray or pass a church.

It’s no wonder that in Arlington National Cemetery and every other place where war dead are laid to rest, there are Jewish stars among the rows of white crosses. “I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew,” Eliasberg told the Supremes.

This case should have been a no-brainer for the court. Too bad five justices think with their bibles, not their law books.

Which is why I still believe that President Obama needs to replace John Paul Stevens, the liberal justice who is retiring from the court this summer, with an atheist or other nonbeliever.

Crosses don’t belong on public land.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is co-editor of Avanti Popolo: Italians Sailing Beyond Columbus, and editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, which has been nominated for both an American Library Association and a Lambda Literary award. His website is www.avicollimecca.com.

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