HAMMER: Bladensburg Cross Memorial Case Is Supreme Court’s Best Chance To Redeem A Key First Amendment Provision – By Josh Hammer (Dailywire) / Feb 18 2019
Captain Henry Lewis Hulbert received the Medal of Honor “for extraordinary heroism” for his bravery in Guam in the 1800s. He also received the Navy Cross and the Croix de Guerre with palm — the latter a French military decoration — during his service in World War I.
John Henry Seaburn left at age 16 to join an all-black World War I regiment fighting in conjunction with the French military. Seaburn wanted to support his mother and escape his abusive father.
Maurice Snyder studied business in Washington before deploying to fight in World War I. He was fatally wounded in combat. “Cpl. Snyder fought gallantly and bravely stood by his post, at which place he rendered the supreme sacrifice,” wrote his commander, Capt. Philip C. McIntyre.
Hulbert, Seaburn, and Snyder are three of the 49 World War I fallen heroes who have been honored by a majestic 40-foot-tall Maryland cross memorial — the “Peace Cross” of Bladensburg — that now stands at the center of this Supreme Court term’s premier First Amendment case. The case, The American Legion v. American Humanist Association, has its oral argument date set for next Wednesday, February 27. Below, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held the Peace Cross memorial to be in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. (Disclosure: I serve in an “Of Counsel” capacity with First Liberty Institute, which, in conjunction with Jones Day, represents The American Legion in this case.)
The Peace Cross was erected in 1925, less than a decade after World War I came to its bloody and ultimately indeterminate conclusion, by a local post of The American Legion. The Gold Star mothers who designed the memorial in Maryland chose the cross to recall the shape of the countless crosses dotting the American graves throughout Europe’s Western Front. The inscription on the memorial’s plaque above the names reads, “This Memorial Cross Dedicated To The Heroes of Prince George’s County Who Gave Their Lives In The Great War For The Liberty Of The World.” The words, “Valor,” “Endurance,” “Courage,” and “Devotion” are inscribed, one on each side of the memorial.
It is nothing short of remarkable — indeed, insane — that we have reached the point where such an anodyne military memorial now allegedly threatens to impinge on constitutionally secured liberty.
Let’s start with first principles.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That is it. Contrary to the revisionism and obfuscation of the ACLU, militant atheists, and secularists run amok, there is no “separation of church and state” provision embedded in the Establishment Clause. Rather, that trite phrase first appeared in an 1802 letter that President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association — and it was not adopted by the Supreme Court until the deeply flawed 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/43626/hammer-bladensburg-cross-memorial-case-supreme-josh-hammer
