The Secular Busybodies Lose Again
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A new Supreme Court precedent saves a county seal featuring a cross.
Supreme Court precedent travels fast. Less than two months ago the Justices ruled 7-2 that a 40-foot stone war memorial, the Peace Cross in Bladensburg, Md., could stay standing on public ground, despite its religious symbolism. Now a federal appeals court has applied that logic to save a 75-year-old county seal.
Lehigh County, Pa., which includes Allentown, adopted its seal in 1944. It includes a Latin cross, superimposed with an image of the county courthouse. Surrounding them are such secular symbols as a heart, lamp, cow, grain silo, bison head, and factory with billowing smokestacks. Two years after this insignia was adopted, a county commissioner said the cross signified “Christianity and the God-fearing people which are the foundation and backbone of our County.”
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