Sometime during the last week of April 2010 the conservative/Republican Supreme Court struck again by proclaiming that Christianity is now the official religion that the United States of America is affiliated with. Okay, well maybe they didn’t say it that directly, but their ruling certainly indirectly declared that. With a 5-4 ruling (it’s always a 5-4 ruling for some reason), the Supreme Court, in all its Republican wisdom, decided that a 7-foot tall Christian Cross bolted into a giant rock 70 miles south of Las Vegas should stay. The cross had been erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars as a way to honor dead American soldiers in World War I.

According to the court, the Christian symbol should be allowed to remain visible on public land because “the cross intended simply to honor our nation’s fallen soldiers.” I don’t know how dead Jewish or Atheist soldiers in WWI would feel about having a giant 7-foot cross honoring them for all eternity. I guess the Supreme Court assumes everyone in America is Christian or at least should be? Maybe that’s why they think no one would be offended by officially endorsing Christianity on public land that I’m sure non-Christians pay tax for in some part.

The Supreme Court is going more and more rogue with American values each day. This is clearly a separation of church and state issue, and it should have been obvious how they should have ruled instead. This cross is just as blatantly religious as a giant poster of Jesus Christ with a speech bubble saying “Christianity is the best” or something of that nature. There must be better ways to honor or dead soldiers such as a bald eagle or our American flag. To allow any religious symbols on public land is surely an official endorsement of that religion because everyone’s tax dollars go into the preservation of that land. I don’t care if people constructed giant statues of the Pope or Darth Vader on their front lawns because that is their property and they can do whatever they wish with it. But when it’s in common, public space, the government should be more considerate.

The interesting thing is that the cross was recently stolen by a bunch of vandals. I do not condone vandalism or stealing, but it sounds like some people, rightfully so, got extremely offended by this endorsement of Christianity by the United States government.

Proponents of this endorsement compared this theft to the desecration of fallen veterans’ graves. This is a huge exaggeration. The graves of veterans can have whatever symbols they want because the symbols are representing that specific fallen soldier. But when the government allows a giant cross to represent the United States of America, that represents every single American citizen whether they are Christian or not. The ironic thing is, they say “since the crime occurred on government property” that “the memorial will be rebuilt and the vandals will be caught.”

It is funny how they keep mentioning that it’s on government property with such inconsideration to what that term actually means to non-Christian; I guess pretty soon the word “government” will be associated with “Christianity” too. Oh by the way, if the cross gets built again, it will probably be with tax-payer dollars.