and a little bit of perspective: According to L.A. Times,
The American Civil Liberties Union wants to take religion out of the Los Angeles County seal. . . .
At issue is the seal designed by the late Supervisor Kenneth Hahn that contains a tiny cross symbolic of the Catholic missions that are so much a part of the county’s history.
In a letter to the supervisors, ACLU Executive Director Ramona Ripston says the cross is unconstitutional and has given them two weeks to act. . . .
In her letter to the supervisors, Ripston said that a 1957 letter to the California secretary of state describing the new seal clearly stated that the cross represented religion. But [Supervisor Mike] Antonovich said the cross was all about history.
“The cross on our county seal reflects these historical facts,” he said. “It does not mean that we are all Roman Catholic or that everyone who resides in our county is a Christian -— it only reflects our historical roots.”
Here’s the offending seal (thanks to How Appealing for the pointer):
The most prominent item is The Goddess Pomona – the goddess of gardens and fruit trees (just to make it clear, there’s no suggestion that the seal somehow endorses her). “The cross represents the influence of the church and the missions of California,” the city’s Web page says.
And whatever might have been said in 1957, it seems to me that in context the reasonable, well-informed observer will indeed see the cross as a historical referent, rather than as an endorsement of religion (which is the Establishment Clause test). Part of the context is just what’s on the seal itself. Look, the cross is right below the oil derricks (though people have accused Angelenos of worshipping the car) and smaller than the pagan goddess.
But the rest of the context is that this is Los Angeles. Los Angeles. Original name (translated from Spanish): The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels. (That’s the deep link between L.A. and Notre Dame.) The state’s capital: Sacramento.
Religion is a fundamental part of California history, as it is part of the history of the country as a whole. There should be no constitutional obligation to extirpate all historical religious references from American public life. Even if the Court is right that government endorsement of religion is unconstitutional, courts must distinguish references that will be seen as endorsing religions from references that simply recognize religion’s role in American history — and the seal seems to me to be well on the side of history, not endorsement.
Or what will be next? Rename Santa Fe? Providence, Rhode Island? Corpus Christi? The Sangre de Cristo Mountains?
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