Maryland court rules World War I Memorial cross is offensive to Atheists

Nothing is more offensive to a liberal looney than a cross.

In their never ending quest to make sure no memorial statue remains standing that does not fit the narrative of a liberal interpretation of history as dictated by feelings, not fact…a Maryland federal court ruled this week that a 1925 American Legion Memorial to World War I must be removed.

The Gateway Pundit reports…

The 87 year old memorial has a cross and, according to the liberal court, that violates the US Constitution.

The 40-foot tall Maryland memorial became known as as the Peace Cross.

The American Legion raised the money to build the cross on private land.

A radical far left group sued last year to take the cross down.

It offends them.

FOX News reports…

In 2014, the American Humanist Association — a group that believes in “being good without a god” — filed a lawsuit alleging the cross-shaped memorial is unconstitutional and demanding it be demolished, altered, or removed.

They alleged the cross carries “an inherently religious message and creates the unmistakable appearance of honoring only Christian servicemen.”

On Wednesday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and ruled the historic memorial must be torn down — all because the Bladensburg Memorial is in the shape of a cross.

The Fourth Circuit said the memorial excessively entangles the government in religion because the cross is the “core symbol of Christianity” and “breaches” the wall separating church and state.

Writing separately, Chief Judge Gregory wrote, “This Memorial stands in witness to the VALOR, ENDURANCE, COURAGE, and DEVOTION of the forty-nine residents of Prince George’s County, Maryland ‘who lost their lives in the Great War for the liberty of the world.’ I cannot agree that a monument so conceived and dedicated and that bears such witness violates the letter or spirit of the very Constitution these heroes died to defend.”

The American Legion could appeal directly to the Supreme Court.

The Becket Fund reported more on this case in December 2016…

For 90 years, a war memorial in Bladensburg, Maryland has reminded passersby of the ultimate sacrifice made by local soldiers in World War I. Yet today the ironically-named American Humanist Association argued in federal court in Richmond, Virginia, that the memorial honoring fallen soldiers must be torn down because it includes a cross.

Known locally as the Peace Cross, the memorial was erected in 1925 on private land with funds raised by the American Legion. It was designed by mothers of local soldiers who died in the war. They modeled the cross after those memorialized in the celebrated poem “In Flanders Fields” that stood “row on row” to “mark [the] place” where their sons lay. The memorial was intended to serve as a memorial gravesite for all families who would never see their sons again. Today the Peace Cross stands among a number of other World War I memorials and is owned by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission as a historic site.

“Talk about ingratitude,” said Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending the memorial. “The American Humanist Association wants to scrub the names of these men and the blood that they spilled in defense of our freedoms out of the historical record. What’s next? Airbrushing the word “God” out of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address? The American Humanist Association’s position is anti-historical, anti-veteran, and anti-humanist.”

The Association claims that the Peace Cross violates the First Amendment as an establishment of religion, but mere disagreement with something one sees should not be confused with forbidden religious coercion. The cross is an internationally recognized symbol of sacrifice and loss, especially associated with World War I. And while some Americans may attribute religious meaning to any cross they see, the Constitution does not demand that the government agree. More importantly, church-state separation does not require religion to be stripped from our nation’s history and culture.

“It is said that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it,” said Rassbach. “The American Humanist Association’s crusade against war memorials will leave future generations ignorant of the profound human cost of war. It is a discredit to patriotic humanists.”