Source: www.nbcmontana.com
MONTANA, U.S., August 19, 2010: The 14 crosses erected along Utah roads to commemorate fallen state Highway Patrol troopers convey a state preference for Christianity and are a violation of the U.S. Constitution, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.
The ruling reverses a 2007 decision by a federal district judge that said the crosses communicate a secular message about deaths and were not a public endorsement of religion. It’s the latest in a recent rash of mixed-bag rulings on the public use of crosses.
The 12-foot high white crosses with 6-foot horizontal crossbars are affixed with the patrol’s beehive logo and a biography of the deceased trooper. First erected in 1998, monuments were paid for with private funds and erected only with the permission of the troopers’ families. Nearly all of the 14 crosses are on public land.
In 2006, the Utah Legislature passed a joint resolution declaring the cross a nonreligious secular symbol of death. But American Atheists, Inc., the Texas-based group that sued to have the crosses removed from state property, argued that the crosses could imply that the trooper who died there was a Christian. Justices agreed and said that while the cross is a widely recognized symbol of death, it is a specific Christian message.