John Witte, Jr. & Nina-louisa Arold, Lift High the Cross?: Contrasting the New European and American Cases on Religious Symbols on Government Property
| Citation | Vol. 25 No. 1 |
| Publication year | 2010 |
LIFT HIGH THE CROSS?†:
CONTRASTING THE NEW EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN CASES ON RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY
John Witte, Jr.* Nina-Louisa Arold**
INTRODUCTION
A comparative anthropologist could not have asked for a better script: two high profile cases, one before the European Court of Human Rights, the other before the U.S. Supreme Court, each involving challenges to traditional displays of crosses on government property. The European high court struck down the cross. The American high court upheld the cross. Both cases are procedurally complicated and are factually distinguishable. But the juxtaposition of these decisions illustrates the growing contrast in European and American attitudes toward traditional religious symbols on government land and toward religious freedom more generally. Europe, as the heartland of Christianity for nearly two millennia, seems to be moving towards ever- stronger policies of secularization and laïcité. America, once the champion of strict separation of church and state, seems to be moving toward an ever more generous accommodation of its religious traditions and symbols.
In Lautsi v. Italy,1 a mother of two children who attended an Italian public school challenged an Italian tradition going back to 1924 that called for the
† This is the title of a hymn, composed by George William Kitchin (1887), revised by Michael R. Newbolt, with music by Sidney R. Nicholson (1916). Come Brethren Follow Where Our Captain Trod, HYMNARY.ORG, http://www.hymnary.org/text/come_christians_follow_where_our_savior (last visited Mar. 19, 2011).
* Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald Distinguished Professor, and Director of the
Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University School of Law.
** Associate Professor, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Associate
Professor of Law, University of Lund, Sweden.
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Lautsi v. Italy, Eur. Ct. H.R. (2009) [hereinafter Lautsi I], http://www.echr.coe.int/echr/Homepage_EN (follow “Case-Law” hyperlink; then follow “HUDOC” hyperlink; then search by placing “Lautsi” in the “Case Title” box and “Italy” in the “Respondent State” box) (referred to the Grand Chamber on March 1, 2010). The hearing was held on June 30, 2010, and eight of the ten intervening states were participating to support the
Italian government. ECHR Crucifix Case: 20 European Countries Support the Crucifix, EUR. CENTER FOR L.
& JUST. (July 21, 2010), http://www.eclj.org/Releases/Read.aspx?GUID=983c3dd3-9c17-4b70-a016- 37851446ec0e&s=eur.
display of a crucifix in each public school classroom.2 The perennial and prominent presence of these overtly Christian symbols, Lautsi argued, was contrary to the atheistic beliefs with which she wanted to raise and educate her children.3 She thus sought to have the crucifixes removed.4 She won her case in the Italian trial court.5 She lost before the Italian domestic courts, which declared that the cross was an integral part of Italy’s history, culture, and identity, and that the cross was itself a symbol of the nation’s distinct commitment to liberty, pluralism, and toleration of all peaceable faiths.6 Lautsi then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that Italy’s actions violated her and her children’s rights to education and to religious
freedom guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights in Article 2 (of Protocol Number 1) and Article 9.7
On November 3, 2009, a unanimous seven-judge chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held for Lautsi.8 The Court found that the public display of crucifixes in public school classrooms constituted a violation both of the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their own convictions and of the right of children to freedom of thought, conscience, and
religion, which included the right to be free from coerced religious participation or observance.9 The Court ordered damages to Lautsi of €5000.10 Italy appealed, dismayed at what it took to be an assault on its national culture and tradition.11
On June 30, 2010, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights heard further arguments in the case.12 At least twenty European nations publicly stated their support for Italy and joined its criticism of the European Court’s first chamber decision.13 The Lautsi case was taken under advisement by the Grand Chamber, which was subject to intense lobbying pressure on both sides.
See Lautsi I, supra note 1, paras. 1, 3, 20.
See id. para. 27.
Id. paras. 1, 7.
See id. paras. 13–15.
See Andrea Pin, Public Schools, the Italian Crucifix, and the European Court of Human Rights: The Italian Separation of Church and State, 25 EMORY INT’L L. REV. 95, 102 (2011).
Lautsi I, supra note 1, paras. 3, 27; see infra notes 65–69 and accompanying text.
Lautsi I, supra note 1, para. 70.
See id. paras. 55–57.
Id. para. 70.
ECHR Crucifix Case: 20 European Countries Support the Crucifix, supra note 1.
Id.
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For a full list of these twenty states, see id.
On March 18, 2011, just as this Article was going to final press, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights reversed the Chamber below, and held fifteen to two in favor of Italy, halting at least for now the steady march toward increasing secularization and laïcité.14 While this Article
retains our analysis of the original Chamber judgment against the backdrop of earlier European Court cases, we reflect on the significance of the Grand Chamber’s judgment in the Conclusion and show the growing convergence with recent U.S. Supreme Court case law.
In Salazar v. Buono,15 a retired national park worker challenged the display of a cross in a national park in the State of California.16 The Veterans of Foreign Wars (“VFW”), a private group, had donated and erected the cross in 1934 as a memorial to fallen American soldiers.17 The cross stood alone, visible on the horizon.18 A small sign at the base of the cross indicated that the VFW had donated it.19 Buono brought suit claiming that the presence of the cross on government land constituted an establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.20 A federal district court found the cross display to be unconstitutional.21 Congress responded by conveying a small parcel of the federal land with and around the cross to the VFW, in exchange for a nearby private tract of land that was added to the national park.22 The district court declared this purported Constitutional cure a “sham,” and repeated its injunction that the cross be removed.23 The national park service appealed, ultimately to the Supreme Court.24
A plurality of the Supreme Court ordered that the cross be retained.25 The decision to enjoin Congress’s land sale, Justice Kennedy wrote for the
See Lautsi v. Italy, Eur. Ct. H.R. (2011) [hereinafter Lautsi II], http://www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/ homepage_EN (follow “Case-Law” hyperlink; then follow “HUDOC” hyperlink; then search by placing “Lautsi” in the “Case Title” box and “Italy” in the “Respondent State” box).
Salazar v. Buono, 130 S. Ct. 1803 (2010).
Id. at 1812.
Id. at 1811.
Id. at 1812.
Id. The signs have since been removed and the cross currently stands unmarked.
Id.; U.S. CONST. amend. I (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .”).
Salazar, 130 S. Ct. at 1812.
Id. at 1813.
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Buono v. Kempthorne (Buono IV), 502 F.3d 1069, 1077–78 (9th Cir. 2009); see Adam Linkner, How
Salazar v. Buono Synthesizes Establishment Clause Precedent into a Single Test, 25 EMORY INT’L L. REV. 57, 79 (2011).
Salazar, 130 S. Ct. at 1814.
Id. at 1821.
plurality, required the district court to undertake a separate Constitutional inquiry of whether Congress had violated the First Amendment Establishment Clause; it could not simply assume that this land sale was a “sham” designed to “evade” the first injunction.26 Congress had tried to resolve a “dilemma”
created by the district court: “It could not maintain the cross without violating the injunction, but it could not remove the cross without conveying disrespect for those [dead soldiers] the cross was seen as honoring. Deeming neither alternative to be satisfactory,” Congress had instead sold the land and cross to a private party.27 The district court now would have to judge the Constitutionality of Congress’s actions on the merits.28 In Justice Kennedy’s view, the district court would have to take into account the reality that, while
the cross was “certainly a Christian symbol,” it had been erected in the park not “to promote a Christian message” or to “set the imprimatur of the state on a particular creed. Rather, those who erected the cross intended simply to honor our Nation’s fallen soldiers.”29 The district court would further have to recognize that “[t]ime also has played its role” and that “the cross and the
cause it commemorated had become entwined in the public consciousness” and part of “our national heritage.”30
The contrasts in these cases are as ironic as they are striking. It is no small irony that Italy, a land saturated with Christian religious symbols, was ordered to remove its crosses, while California, famous for its Hollywood-style secularism and avant-garde culture, may keep a cross in place. It is no small irony that, after so many centuries of cultural adaptation and application, a cross in Italy was still judged to be an offensive religious symbol, while in America, after a few short decades, a memorial cross was judged to be so deeply woven into American “public consciousness” and “national heritage”
that it could no longer be removed.31 And it is no small irony that the European
Court, operating without an explicit prohibition on religious establishments, struck down the cross, while the U.S. Supreme Court, armed with an explicit Constitutional command that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,”32 let the cross stand on land that Congress
controlled.
26 Id. at 1814–21.
27 Id. at 1809.
28 Id. at 1820–21.
Id. at 1816–17 (emphasis omitted).
Id. at...
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