Supreme Court hears memorial cross case

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the case of a threatened World War I memorial in Bladensburg, Md. First Liberty President Kelly Shackelford, who argued the case before the high court, said the lawsuit is a chance to clear up the confusing legal precedent about public displays with religious imagery, which he said everyone seemed to recognize “is in hopeless disarray.”

“We were very encouraged by the way things went today and are really hopeful,” he said at a news conference directly after the arguments.

The American Humanist Association sued the town of Bladensburg for the cross memorial, which an American Legion post erected in 1925 to honor local men who died in World War I. A U.S. District Court judge in Maryland ruled the memorial could stay in 2015, but a three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the cross a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. If the Supreme Court doesn’t reverse the ruling, the memorial must be removed.

The justices likely will not issue their ruling until June.