In the wake of the L.A. County seal controversy, some people (including me) have given city names as an analogy — city names such as “Los Angeles,” “Sacramento,” “Corpus Christi,” “Providence,” and the like are religious references, the argument goes, but surely we shouldn’t hold them to be an Establishment Clause violation, even if one accepts that the Establishment Clause generally bars government speech that a reasonable, knowledgeable observer would see as an endorsement of religion. Why? Because city names are not seen today as endorsements of religion, but just as reflections of the nation’s history. Likewise, the argument goes, with the cross on the L.A. county seal.
But the city name issue, it turns out, is not just a hypothetical. In the early 1990s, James O’Leary sued the County of Sacramento, complaining that the county’s seal contained the religious term . . . “Sacramento.” In the words of the Ninth Circuit memorandum in this case,
O’Leary alleged that the County of Sacramento’s (“County”) use of the “sacred holy name (Sacramento) on their county seals have caused him to suffer anger, shame, fright, humiliation, mental anguish, emotional distress and physical distress,” forcing him to “go ‘underground’ with his Christian religion.”
The court rejected O’Leary’s claim on procedural grounds.
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