Two separate appellate courts in California yesterday heard arguments in cases involving challenges to alleged unconstitutional uses of a cross by local authorities. In Pasadena, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in a case challenging a 2004 decision by Los Angeles county to remove a cross from the county's official seal. Today's Los Angeles Daily Bulletin reports that the suit was filed by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of county Department of Public Works employee. He alleges that the change in the county's seal violated the Constitution by conveying a state-sponsored message of disapproval and hostility toward Christianity. The county has already spent $700,000 replacing the old seal with the new one that features a mission and an American Indian.
Meanwhile, in a state appellate court in San Diego, oral arguments were being held on one aspect of the long-running dispute over the Mt. Soledad cross. The San Diego Union Tribune today reports that the "lively" two-hour oral argument focused on a 2005 trial court ruling that Proposition A-- a voter initiative transferring land under the Mt. Soledad cross to the federal government-- was unconstitutional. The lower court had found that the voters had intended to aid religion in violation of California's constitutional provisions prohibiting such aid or favoritism.
