The Patriot Post® · Court Throws Out Suit to Dismantle Memorial Cross

Judge Deborah Chasanow, a federal judge in Maryland, rejected a suit by the American Humanist Association Monday that tried to dismantle a 40-foot cross honoring the veterans who fought and died during World War I. Despite the accusations, Chasanow — a Clinton appointee, by the way — ruled that the Bladensburg Peace Cross in Maryland predominantly fulfilled a secular purpose, which was to invoke the thousands of crosses under which American soldiers lie buried. “Although the record indicates that there were three isolated religious services held at the Monument,” Chasanow wrote, “the predominant and nearly exclusive use of the Monument has been for annual commemorative events held on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.” This suit was reminiscent of the fight over the memorial cross at Mount Soledad in San Diego, which was targeted for removal by those that wanted to strip every hint and inference of Christianity from the public square. Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky wrote of the Bladensburg Peace Cross, “The plaintiffs in this case, in essence, wanted to destroy a 90-year-old memorial to fallen soldiers based on thoughtless, vain, and shallow motives that are an insult to the sacrifices of brave Americans.” Like their intellectual siblings in higher education, it sounds like these cross-phobic humanists need some “safe spaces.”