U.S. top court takes up religious dispute over Maryland cross

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday waded into a new fight over the separation of church and state, agreeing to decide whether a towering cross-shaped war memorial erected in 1925 on public land in Maryland violates the Constitution's ban on government endorsement of religion.

The justices agreed to hear two separate appeals of a lower court's ruling that the memorial violated the Constitution's First Amendment prohibition on the government favoring one religion, saying the memorial - dubbed the "peace cross" - is inherently religious due to its shape like a Christian cross.

The high court will take up appeals brought by a public agency called the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which owns the cross, and the American Legion, a private veterans organization that holds memorial events at the site. The legion is represented by the First Liberty Institute, a conservative religious rights group.

The 40-foot-tall (12 meters) cross, located at a busy intersection just outside Washington, was completed in 1925 to honor 49 members of the U.S. armed forces from Maryland's Prince George's County who died in World War One.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-top-court-takes-up-religious-dispute-over-maryland-cross/ar-BBPh9Iw?li=BBnbcA1

[asiliveandbreathe]

1. I knew there was another case similar to this memorial - the Mojave Memorial Cross..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Memorial_Cross

lower court rulings declared it illegal because of separation of church and state constitutional concerns.

A land exchange solved the problem....

On April 28, 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled on Salazar v. Buono in a 5-4 decision sent the case back to a lower court.[7] The high court ruled there was no violation of the separation of church and state when Congress transferred the land surrounding the cross to a veterans group