The US Supreme Court ruled today on the issue of the constitutionality of a latin cross on federal property in the Mojave National Preserve in California. The cross was planted there in 1934 as a tribute to the US war dead from the First World War. The ruling was deeply confrontational and decided the issue by a vote of 5 to 4 with the cross remaining on the property. The majority said the cross was "not mearly a reaffirmation of Christian belief". However, the issue has not been completely resolved (as I understand it) by this decision because it only returns the case to lower courts to reconsider. It seems that the issue being debated here was the lower court ruling that an acre of land, that the cross rested on, was to be transferred to private hands. A lower court ruled that was an unconstitutional way to avoid the issue. Thus, this ruling did not directly deal with the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The case was Salazar v. Bruno 2010.
(Source: "Cross gets court's blessing" by David G. Savage of McClatchy Newspapers. In The Record on 4/29/10. New York Times online 4/29/10)
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