A Christian flag standing behind the judges' bench at the Bryan County Courthouse in Pembroke may be coming down.

Bryan County Clerk of Courts Becky Crowe said she received a letter on July 11 from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, or FFRF, noting that there was a Christian flag displayed in the courtroom. The letter included pictures someone had taken of the flag, Crowe said.

The letter went on to say that it is unconstitutional for a government entity to display a flag with a patently religious symbol and meaning on its grounds and the county needed to take immediate action to remove the flag from the courthouse, Crowe said.

Crowe - who noted that she is not responsible for what is inside the courtroom - forwarded the letter to Lea Holiday, the county's attorney.

"He sent me a letter I received today in response to it basically saying he concluded the flag should be removed from the courtroom," Crowe said Tuesday. "His words were 'I believe it will be hard to show that the Christian flag either advances a secular purpose or it is not an endorsement of Christianity. As such I must reluctantly conclude that it is necessary to remove the flag from the courtroom."

On its website, ffrf.org, the organization states that the religious significance of the cross and the flag is indisputable, and urges that the flag be removed immediately. The Christian flag is typically white with a red cross that sits on a blue background in the upper left corner.

"An overwhelming majority of federal courts agree that the Latin cross universally represents the Christian religion, and only the Christian religion. And a majority of federal courts have held displays of Latin crosses on public property to be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion," FFRF staff attorney Elizabeth Cavell wrote in the letter to Crowe according to the website.

However, to Crowe's knowledge, the flag is still in the courtroom.

"As far as I know the flag has not been removed. I don't know who would remove it or when. I just know it wouldn't be me," she said Tuesday afternoon.

Crowe said she didn't place the flag in the courtroom and doesn't believe it's her responsibility to remove it.

"I think it would be either the judges, because they control the courtroom, or the county commissioners,'' she said. That's why I sent it to the attorney not the commissioners because I felt they would have done the same to get an official opinion of what needed to be done. So that is where it stands now."

The FFRF, a Madison, Wis.-based nonprofit educational charity, is the nation's largest association of freethinkers [atheists, agnostics], and has been working since 1978 to keep religion and government, according to its website.